What Would Slytherin Harry Do?
by Big D on a Diet
Summary: An ongoing series of one shot stories exploring how Slytherin!Harry would have handled key moments from the books. Events will appear out of order, so don't be surprised if it jumps around. Small but important edit made to Chapter Five
1. The Sneak

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: The Sneak

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!!!!" Daphne Greengrass bellowed fiercely.

Her robes fluttered in an unfelt wind and long, dark brown hair lifted off her shoulders, waving about as if she were underwater as she forced every drop of magic she could possibly channel into the spell. Her wand responded with a brief, almost taunting puff of silver mist that looked like it should have been accompanied by a rude noise.

"BLOODY FUCKING USELESS SPELL!!!!" she howled, clenching her wand in a white-knuckled fist and glaring around the room as if searching for someone to curse. Most of the students in the Room of Requirement edged away from her carefully, trying not to draw the rather unbalanced girl's attention to them with any sudden moves. Most of them had been witnesses to at least one of her temper tantrums, and while no one had been permanently injured yet, none of them wanted to take a chance on being the first.

A few feet away, leaning against a table with his arms folded across his chest, stood a slender, neatly-dressed young man with shoulder-length black hair tied back in a loose tail. Bright green eyes contemplated the frustrated girl as he gave her a second or two to calm down before asking a question.

"What memory did you use?"

Daphne turned to look at him and grinned slightly. It was a feral smile, more at home on a Doberman than a debutante. "The time I hexed Longbottom's elbows backwards."

Over her shoulder, Harry could see the boy in question lift his head and narrow his eyes at her. His thumb tapped the grip of his wand, but Harry caught his gaze and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Neville frowned slightly, then returned to his practice. He had not been one of the students who had moved away from Daphne once her temper had started to flare. If anything, it looked like he might have drifted a few feet closer. He made a mental note to schedule an exhibition duel between the two of them for the next meeting. Longbottom had been progressing by leaps and bounds and was itching to show off what he could do, particularly against one of the people who had made his life miserable over the previous four years. Greengrass just needed to be taken down a peg or two, and shown that there was someone in the school other than himself who wasn't afraid of her. Getting her delightfully rounded backside handed to her by an ickle Griffy would also be excellent motivation for her to improve her occasionally sloppy wandwork.

Focusing back on the matter at hand, he chuckled slightly. "I don't think that's quite the sort of happy memory you want to conjure a Patronus with. Perhaps something a little more... innocent."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I don't do innocent."

"You also apparently don't do Patroni." he chided.

She growled at him slightly, but they were distracted by a chorus of gasps and coos from the other side of the room. Cho Chang had just managed a corporal Patronus, a bright silver swan that was currently preening its shimmering feathers under the admiring eyes of a widening circle of students. She was the third person in the group, other than Harry himself, who had managed the feat so far. The other two, Hermione Granger and Tracy Davis, had each settled in at opposite ends of the room from each other and seemed dead set on pretending that the other girl didn't exist. They had also conspicuously allowed their Patroni to continue manifesting themselves, Tracy's tiger lounging sleepily at her feet while Hermione's otter swam gracefully through the air around the room.

"I'll bet her happy memory didn't involve any painful joint bending," he said, nodding at the Ravenclaw girl.

Daphne raised an eyebrow at him. "I guess that depends on exactly what the two of you got up to after you nicked her away from Diggory and disappeared after the end of the Yule Ball last year."

He made a pained face. "Never gonna live that one down, am I? Anyway, it doesn't count, I was only trying to get into Diggory's head."

"So you took a shortcut through Chang's knickers?"

He shrugged. "You know what they say: It's not the destination that matters, it's the journey."

She snorted. "And now you've got your own lovesick little eagle following you around, whimpering for you to notice her again."

He winced again. "It's not my fault. I tried to give her back to Diggory, but she wouldn't go for it. Even tried a Memory Charm, but I think I twiddled it. She still remembered what we had done, but she kept forgetting where her bed was."

Daphne started to say something else, but they both turned as the door banged open and a tiny figure dressed in garish, but perfectly tailored robes that made him look like a miniature version of Albus Dumbledore rushed in and scurried over to Harry, glancing around fearfully and knotting his hands through the long fake beard glued to his chin. Harry bit down a laugh at the sight of his house-elf. He had mentioned in passing over the summer that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, and Dobby had taken the words rather literally. He'd barely managed to prevent the creature from carving a lightening bolt into his own forehead with a butcher's knife and had given firm orders never to try and imitate him again. So Dobby had settled on the next best thing. Harry had to admit that it was a rather artful, Slytherin-esque, dodge of a direct order and had allowed him to keep the look. Dumbledore himself seemed to get a kick out of it as well.

Daphne didn't bother to hide her guffaws, but Dobby ignored her. Several other students, including Tracy and Hermione, had seen the house-elf's frantic entrance and had wandered over to investigate.

"Master Harry, Master Harry!!!" he squeaked. Hermione huffed at the "Master" part, but was fighting back a smile at Dobby's choice of lime green robes trimmed in neon yellow. Someone in the back joked that he looked like a billboard for 7-Up, but many of those in attendance had no idea what either one of those items were, so it didn't draw many laughs.

The jokes ended when Dobby finally spit out his message. "She is coming, Master!!! She knows Master is here!!!"

"Umbridge?" Harry asked, and several people gasped when Dobby nodded. "Shit!"

Harry glanced around the room, counting heads. "Who's not here?" he barked.

Tracy and Hermione were the quickest on the uptake and answered almost in unison, with equal amounts of venom. "Edgecombe." They blinked in surprise, then glared at each other for a moment before turning back to him.

He made another mental note to arrange a duel between those two as well, should they ever have another DA meeting after this. Maybe he could sell tickets, with the Longbottom-Greengrass tilt as an undercard. He'd probably sell a lot more if he could convince them to make it some kind of Bikini Bookworm Pillow Fight. He could tell Granger that the proceeds would go to SPEW, then tell Davis that he was tricking Granger into thinking that the proceeds were going to SPEW. It might work. It might also explode in his face and he'd have the two smartest witches in the school putting aside their personal and House feuds to team up and kick his ass... but what's life without a little risk?

He was pulled out of his train of thought by someone asking him what they were going to do. Glancing up, he could see panic etching the faces of the people around him and bit back a sigh. All right, Potter, time to show them why you're the one in charge. He put on his game face.

"Dobby," he ordered, "Bug out back to the kitchens. You were never here. We never spoke. Got it?" The house-elf nodded and scampered away.

Some of the students seemed to take that as an indication that they too should leave and began making for the door. Harry snapped his fingers and willed it closed.

"Um, Harry?" Neville ventured, raising his hand. "Shouldn't we be bugging out too?" Several people around him nodded eagerly. "You know, with the Pink Toad Bitch on her way and all?"

He snapped his fingers again and willed enough chairs for everyone into existence. "No, we have a lesson to finish. Now everyone sit down." A number of people looked at him doubtfully and eyed the door again. Harry felt a stab of irritation go through him. "Sit!" he snapped.

If he didn't know better he'd have thought that they all apparated to their seats. The DA members moved in such a rush that Tracy and Hermione actually ended up right next to each other, much to their mutual disgust. Maybe mud wrestling instead of a pillow fight. Bet he could make a fortune off the omniocular recordings.

"Now listen, 'cause I'm only going to say this once," he told them. "If you don't want to be expelled, keep your mouths shut and follow my lead. Everything is completely under control, so all you have to do is try not to look guilty." He raised an eyebrow. "Creevy! What in the name of Morgana's saggy tits are you doing?"

"I'm pinching myself to make myself cry. If I cry, my mummy always lets me off easy."

Harry rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment while the rest of the room snickered. "Bloody Gryffindors," he grumbled. "Still, for him, I suppose that qualifies as cunning." He glanced back down and saw that Collin was still at it. "Stop pinching yourself, you little git! You're fourteen years old! Act like it! And if you so much as sniffle when Umbridge gets here, I'll shackle you to a tree in the Forbidden Forest and make you chew off your own leg to get loose!"

That got their attention. Nothing quite like the threat of imminent violence from the Boy-Who-Duels-With-Dark-Lords-And-Lives-To-Tell-The-Tale to remind people that he was much more frightening than Umbridge could ever hope to be.

Harry began to walk them through the basics of the Patronus Charm one more time, but had hardly gotten started before the door flew open and in marched the Frilly Pink Nightmare herself, followed by a dozen of her hand-picked Inquisitorial Squad. The Squad consisted mainly of the upperclass Slytherins who weren't members of the DA, which meant Malfoy and his little tribe of inbred mutants. The single exception was a rather uncomfortable looking redheaded Gryffindor, who was trying to appear menacing while avoiding the venomous glares of his little sister and twin brothers. He tried to surreptitiously catch Harry's eye, but Harry ignored Ron in favor of gracing the High Inquisitor with a pleased smile.

"Professor Umbridge, how very nice to see you," he said brightly, without a trace of sarcasm. "Is there something we can help you with?"

"You're caught now, Potter," Draco Malfoy spat. "Maybe if I ask them nice they'll let me be the one to snap your wand for you." He seemed gleeful at the prospect, but Harry didn't even bother to acknowledge him. He continued to patiently watch Professor Umbridge, waiting for her to say something.

She had stopped just inside the door and was taken aback for a moment by the fact that none of the students whom she was about to expel seemed very bothered by her presence. Most of them looked at her with varying degrees of disinterest, as if she were just briefly interrupting and they would soon go back to whatever they were doing. She quickly regained her composure and her wide mouth split open in a smile that seemed to literally go from ear to ear. "Well, well, well," she simpered in that horrendous, little girl manner of hers. "If it isn't the Boy-Who-_Lies_," she said, stretching out and emphasizing the last word.

Harry kept the easy, polite smile plastered onto his face and resisted the urge to scratch the back of his right hand. _I must not tell lies_ was all but carved into his flesh at this point, but nothing would be served by rising to her pitiful bait. 'You want to play, bitch?' he thought, 'Then let's play.'

"As I said, it is of course a pleasure to see you, Professor Umbridge. But I'm at a loss to understand what all of you are doing here." He snapped his fingers as if he'd just thought of something. "Unless you were planning on joining us? You're certainly welcome to, there's plenty of room." He snapped his fingers again and thirteen more chairs appeared. Several of the Inquisitorial Squad raised their wands at the display, but they were just as confused by Harry's offer as everyone in the DA was. Most of them had turned back to face Harry so that Umbridge couldn't see the astonished looks on their faces.

She marched towards him while the IS spread themselves out to prevent anyone from making a break for the door, not than any of them appeared to have any interest in leaving. "I have not come here to join you, you arrogant, ungrateful little child, I have come to remove you from this school!" she hissed once they were face to face. Harry allowed his eyebrows to knot in confusion, as if he couldn't imagine why she would possibly want to expel him, but said nothing.

Adopting a more conciliatory tone, she turned back to the rest of the DA. "But that fate does not have to befall the rest of you poor darlings. I can give you all my personal word that no one who cooperates with us will be expelled. I am well aware of how confusing Mister Potter's lies can be, and I'm sure that none of you knew that you were breaking the law by allowing him to lead you astray." She blinked at a soft snort by Daphne, but pressed on. "Miss Granger? You have such a bright future ahead of you. Do you really want to throw it all away for a silly boy with delusions of grandeur?"

Hermione folded her hands primly across her lap and looked up at Umbridge with an level gaze. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, Professor. No one's doing anything wrong here, least of all Harry," she said with total conviction.

Umbridge frowned, then turned to Neville. "Mister Longbottom. What would your dear Grandmother think if you came home with your wand snapped? Your parents were heroes to the Ministry. If they were here, they would tell you to do the right thing. You can be a hero as well, all you have to do is help us."

Neville's fists clenched angrily as she brought up his parents. "You're right. My mum and dad were heroes. And if they were here they'd tell you exactly where you could stick my broken wand."

The Room of Requirement filled with barely stifled laughter, some of it coming from the Inquisitorial Squad, until Umbridge flicked her wand and set off a blast of sound that nearly deafened everyone inside. Her eyes scanned the still snickering DA, trying to see if there was anyone who might crack. She seemed to be looking for Gryffindors, hoping to exploit the divide between them and Slytherin. Her eyes fell on Fred and George, whom she immediately dismissed as irredeemable, then landed on Ginny, who cut her off before she could even get started.

"Percy's a useless bootlicker. Ron's a horrid prat. And those robes make you look like one of those awful pink muggle snack cakes that my father skips across our pond," she stated with a bright, cheerful smile. More laughter ensued. She reached back to slap away Fred's hand as it tried to ruffle her hair and saw Harry looking at her pointedly. "Oh, and we're not doing anything wrong," she said almost as an afterthought. Behind her, Ron flinched as if someone had punched him in the gut and tried to draw Harry's attention again, to no avail.

Umbridge rounded on Harry again, who was still smiling politely, and not laughing in the slightest. "Come with me," she growled. "The Minister is waiting for us in the Headmaster's office. He will deal with you."

Harry clapped his hands excitedly. "Wicked! Come on, gang, let's go talk to the Minister!"

"I didn't mean all of you."

"Well, if we're all supposed to be in trouble, shouldn't we all go?"

She frowned at the large group of students who, only minutes before, had been practicing Merlin only knew what kind of curses and hexes. "You will have to surrender your wands."

Harry smiled again. "Of course." He handed over his wand and motioned to the others that they should do the same. None of them looked happy about it, but they complied.

They marched to the Headmaster's office, Umbridge in the lead, with Harry whistling an annoying little tune next to her and the Inquisitorial Squad bringing up the rear. Harry could hear snatches of conversation behind him, most of it insults being traded between the DA and the IS. So far the plan had gone perfectly. The only real danger had been if one of the DA members had cracked, but they had held together like the army they were supposed to be. He frowned for a split second. Except for Edgecombe, but that was a matter for another time.

Dumbledore's eyes tightened as he saw Harry and Umbridge enter his office, then blinked several times as nearly fifty students, DA and IS combined, piled in behind them. Percy leapt to his feet sputtering, but Kingsley merely caught Harry's eye and chuckled, knowing that he was in for a show. He was sitting with another man that Harry didn't recognize, but who held himself like a fighter. McGonagall was also there, and looked worriedly at the mass of students trooping in. Edgecombe sat in the corner, sniffling, and Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from bursting out with laughter when he saw her. Most of the rest of the DA weren't quite so kind and Hermione looked particularly pleased with herself, but Harry shot them a look that told them that now wasn't the time. Fudge was sitting opposite of Dumbledore, glaring at the older wizard, hardly noticing the number of students flooding into the room until it was very nearly full.

Once he did notice, he gasped and stood. "This is not a town meeting!" he declared. "Get these children out of here!"

Dumbledore sat back in his chair. "Come now, Cornelius. If you intend to expel all of these wonderful young men and women, don't you at least owe it to them to look them in the eyes and tell them why?" The old man's eyes twinkled even more than usual.

Fudge gritted his teeth. "Whatever explanation they are owed, now is not the time. This room is far too small for so many people." Indeed, it was like a sardine can inside, with students packed together front to back, though Daphne appeared to have a few feet of clear air around her for some reason.

Harry raised his hand. "That's no problem that a little magic can't solve." He looked Umbridge in the eye and smirked, then snapped his fingers just as he had done in the Room of Requirement. She gasped and stepped back as the room began to subtly expand. As soon as the room was big enough, a chair for each person appeared. Everyone except Harry and Dumbledore seemed stunned for a moment at the sight of such powerful wandless magic, but soon they were all settled in and comfortable.

"Now," Harry said, leaning back and clasping his hands in front of him. "Can someone explain to me what all this fuss is about?"

"Don't play dumb with me, boy," Fudge snapped. "You know exactly why you are here."

"No, I'm afraid I don't," Harry said slowly. "Why don't you tell me?"

Fudge drew himself up in his chair. "You are here to be expelled for your blatant and repeated violations of Ministry Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four. Should you attempt to resist, you will be arrested."

Harry snorted a laugh. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life."

"Don't you dare laugh at me, boy! If you think I won't have you arrested you are sorely mistaken. No one is above the law, not even grandstanding liars such as yourself!"

"Oh, I don't doubt your willingness to have me arrested, you proved you had no problem with that this summer. All I meant was that I haven't broken Ministry Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four. None of us have." There were some faint mutters from the DA and Dumbledore fingered his beard slowly, but right now the floor belonged to Harry and the Minister.

"Preposterous," Fudge snarled. "I have a witness." He stabbed a finger in the corner where Edgecombe was. "Right there." Marietta glanced up at Harry for a split second, then let out another soft sob and shrunk back into her chair. Across her forehead was a series of angry, painful-looking purple pustules that spelled out the word "SNEAK".

Harry raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly does Miss Edgecombe claim to have witnessed?" he asked mildly, ignoring the girl's condition. He planned to visit far worse on her once he got the chance. "Perhaps she could tell us herself." The girl whimpered again.

"She is currently incapable of speaking properly," Umbridge cut in. "She very wisely came to me and informed me I would find something quite interesting, should I visit the so-called Room of Requirement tonight. Once I finally got her to admit that it was a meeting of an illegal Dark Arts club, a pair of Binding Spells were called into effect and she was rendered unable to communicate."

Deep within his black little Slytherin heart, Harry was laughing his ass off and tipping his hat to the DA's resident pair of soon-to-be-bikini-clad brainiacs. But on the surface all he did was furrow his brow slightly and ask... "How do you know that it was a spell? I mean, most teenaged girls do tend to get blemishes at some point in their lives. Just because her's happened to have arranged themselves in a pattern that might be misconstrued as a word doesn't mean that there was magic involved."

Slytherin Motto: Deny. Deny. Deny. Well, there was also that thing about "better a cousin than a mudblood", but whoever wrote that had obviously never met Harry's cousin.

"Show him the other one," Umbridge ordered Marietta.

She squinched her eyes closed and opened her mouth. Where her normal flat pink tongue should have been was a nearly foot-and-a-half-long, slender, dark black snake's tongue with a forked tip. It flicked out into the air for a moment, then slid back into Marietta's mouth.

Behind him, Harry heard Hermione gasp and Tracy let out a self-satisfied snort.

"What do you say to that?"

Harry shrugged. "I'd say that her boyfriend is a very lucky man," he replied dryly. Edgecombe went so red with embarrassment that for a moment you could hardly read the word on her forehead and most of the males in the room grinned knowingly. Creevy looked confused, then blushed nearly as hard as Marietta when Fred and George leaned in on either side of him and began whispering in his ears.

Umbridge made a disgusted face, but Fudge ignored her and took over the questioning. "You say that you have not broken any Ministry laws or decrees, correct?" he said harshly.

Harry paused for a moment, thinking it over. He had broken dozens of laws in his short but full life, including several that would have had him in Azkaban in a trice, but nothing that Minister Fudge could possibly know about. "Absolutely not," he stated firmly.

"Then you haven't been secretly teaching a large number of students spells that have been forbidden by the Ministry?"

Harry acted as if he were pleasantly surprised. "Oh, is that what this is about? Well, actually yes, I have been teaching quite a few people at Hogwarts how to defend themselves for some time now, including a bit of what some would consider the Dark Arts. But I can assure you that none of the spells I've been teaching are forbidden or illegal in any way. In fact, we were working on the Patronus Charm just before Professor Umbridge graced us with her delightful presence." He flashed her a charming smile and inwardly howled with laughter at the confused look on her face.

Several members of the DA gasped behind him. McGonagall paled and brought a hand to her chest. Dumbledore hurriedly opened his mouth to speak, but Harry silenced him with a quick look and a discrete gesture of his hand. He sensed Shacklebolt shifting in the seat to his left, getting ready to stand and fight if it came to that, but Harry still had everything under control.

Fudge smiled for the first time since Harry had entered the room. It gave him a shark-like aspect. "So you _do_ admit to breaking the Decree?" he purred.

He shrugged. "I don't see what my teaching Defensive spells to my classmates has to do with any Educational Decrees."

Fudge blinked. "Are you mad? Ministry Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four expressly forbids any such thing without approval from the High Inquisitor!"

Harry smiled at him one more time. This time it was neither polite nor playful. If anything, it was even more shark-like than the one Fudge had just given him. "Actually, it doesn't." He took a moment to soak in the Minister's gobsmacked face before continuing. "Ministry Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four only forbids Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs. The classes that I have conducted don't fall into any of those categories, and so are exempt from it."

There was more muttering behind him. Percy and McGonagall both looked completely lost. Dumbledore eyebrows furrowed briefly, then a tiny, knowing smile crossed his lips. Fudge looked at him like he was a raving lunatic.

"Then what do you call _this_!" he demanded, jabbing his finger at the assembled DA members.

Harry leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Well, I don't know what you call it, but I know that since Ministry Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four expressly defines all Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs as, and I quote: a regular meeting of three or more students, then my classes can't possibly qualify as any of them."

He heard a soft gasp followed by a sharp laugh behind him and glanced back to see Tracy staring at him and shaking her head in amusement. He winked at her and she just laughed harder. Hermione looked between them in frustration, still not getting it, then closed her eyes and muttered something briefly to herself. A second later, her eyes popped back open and her mouth formed a into a surprised "O". A catlike grin spread across her lips as she leaned back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other and lifted her chin proudly. Harry smirked at her and her cheeks tinged slightly pink.

Fudge obviously had no idea where Harry was going with this, but could sense that it was going to be unpleasant. "Why not?"

"Because my classes weren't regular," Harry stated simply. "Each and every one of them occurred on a different day and time from the one before. You might say that they were the opposite of regular, random even. Or at the very least intermittent. And since the Oxford English Dictionary defines regular in this context as: occurring at fixed times, then there is no way that we could have possibly broken the Decree." Fudge looked at him in confusion and Harry flashed him another polite grin. "If you don't believe me, just ask your witness over there," he said, nodding at Marietta. He caught Edgecombe's eye for a split second and could see that she now knew just how badly she had fucked up. Harry was mere moments from wiggling his way out of this mess, and they both knew that, once he had, it would be open season on all Sneaks.

Inside, he was laughing a laugh that would have frightened Voldemort. Even if he had wanted to have regular meetings, it would have been impossible, given the need for secrecy and the conflicting schedules of everyone involved. So he had just taken advantage of the lorry-sized loophole that Fudge and Umbridge had dropped into his lap when they had rushed the Decree through the Wizengamot without taking the time to have a solicitor look it over properly.

The goblins would be so proud.

Behind him, the DA also realized that they were in the clear. Several of them were talking excitedly amongst themselves, and the Weasley's twins shared a high-five before directing an identical pair of rude gestures at Ron, who sat near the door with his Prefect and Inquisitorial Squad pins on either side of his collar. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but said nothing.

"You can't possibly be serious!" Fudge sputtered. "You know bloody damn well that's not what the law is referring to!"

Harry's eyes narrowed. "I think you made it perfectly clear at my hearing this summer that the spirit of the law is irrelevant, and it is only the letter of the law that counts. And according to the letter of the law, we have done absolutely nothing wrong," he said in a voice like a razor blade.

Calming himself slightly, he reapplied his polite smile and easy manner. "Now... not to tell you how to do your job, but if I were you, I would have banned _organized_ meetings of three or more people. Had you used that language, then we would have been in clear violation of the Decree."

At this point, Dumbledore broke in. He looked like he was just holding in a belly laugh, and his eyes were twinkling like mad. "I realize that I am no longer sitting on the Wizengamot, Cornelius, but I do still have a great deal of experience in these matters and Mister Potter is quite correct. Should you attempt to bring any of these students up on charges, they will be quickly dismissed."

Fudge looked between him and Harry furiously. His face had gone beet red and each breath seemed to be louder than the last. For a split second, Harry thought he was going to have the immense pleasure of watching the Minister of Magic stroke out and drop dead right here on the Headmaster's carpet, but no such luck.

He pointed a trembling finger at Harry. "You stay," he hissed. "The rest of you children, get out!"

The Inquisitorial Squad wasted no time in jumping up and making for the door. The DA didn't so much as twitch.

"What are you waiting for!" Fudge demanded.

"For you to give them their wands back," Harry replied calmly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it was.

Fudge snarled, but nodded at Umbridge. Once their wands had been returned the DA finally made to leave. Several lingered near the door until Harry nodded that it was all right to go, which seemed to make Fudge that much more angry.

As soon as the door shut on the last student, Fudge rounded on Harry and started shouting.

Half an hour later, Harry was making his way back to the Slytherin dorms, letting his feet guide him absently as he furiously went over what had just happened in his mind. Plans were made, discarded, rethought, reworked, and discarded again with every footstep. As he passed through the Charms corridor, he heard someone hissing at him. Looking up, he could see Ginny waving at him from an empty classroom. Inside were several members of the unofficial DA "Inner Circle".

"How did you enlarge the room and conjure all those chairs without a wand?" Hermione asked excitedly as soon as he entered. "That was amazing!" She had clearly been dying to ask him about it.

Harry chuckled at her. "What makes you think I did that?"

"We all saw you!"

He shrugged. "You saw me say that magic could fix the problem, then snap my fingers. Doesn't mean that I cast any spells."

"Dumbledore," Tracy breathed.

He nodded. "Just some good old-fashioned slight of hand. Get the marks looking one way, while the real magic is happening behind the scenes. And if Umbridge and Fudge got the wrong idea about how powerful I am... well, that's not my fault, is it?"

"I wouldn't have thought that the old man had it in him to be so devious," Daphne said.

He gave her a flat look. "Trust me, Albus Dumbledore is the most Slytherin son of a bitch you'll ever meet in your life. How he weaseled his way into Gryffindor, I'll never know. Probably blackmailed the Sorting Hat."

He grimaced and sighed. "And now he's been sacked."

"WHAT!!!" several voices shouted at once.

There was stunned silence for several seconds before Ginny spoke up. "How?"

"Well," Harry began. "After you guys left, Pudgy Fudgey started ranting and raving like a loon. Frankly, I stopped paying much attention after the third time he told me that I wasn't going to get away with making a fool out of him. Anyway, at some point, Umbridge realized that she still had the parchment that we all signed back at the first meeting."

Tracy frowned. "Why would that matter? They already know who we are."

"True. But they were more interested in what was written at the top of the list... Dumbledore's Army."

She gasped. "You don't mean..." He nodded. "They can't have actually took that seriously!" He nodded again. Tracy rounded on Hermione. "You! I told you that was a stupid name!"

Hermione bristled. "I didn't pick the name!" she hissed. "And besides, we all voted on it."

"But you were the one dumb enough to write it on the top of the paper!"

"I didn't see you trying to stop me! You must of seen it while you were putting another Binding Spell on it behind my back! Where do you get off with that anyway?!"

"Someone had to make sure it was done properly!"

Ginny turned to Harry. "Are you going to stop this?"

"I'm thinking about it," he told her. What he was really doing was trying to remember the incantation to conjure mud, but was drawing a blank.

Ginny frowned and muttered a spell, setting off a bright flash of light that drew the attention of the fighting girls, who were rapidly approaching the hair-pulling stage, or at least the point where they hexed each other into smears on the wall. Harry's money was on Granger if it came to follicle removal, but thought that Davis might be able to take her with a wand. Granger was probably more powerful, but Slytherins fought dirty.

Tracy and Hermione turned away from each other, but both of them glared at the Weasley twins when they started applauding.

"If you two are done, maybe we can figure out what we're supposed to do now," Ginny said pointedly. They had the grace to blush, but still wouldn't acknowledge each other.

"If Professor Dumbledore is gone, who's supposed to be running the school?" Hermione asked, trying to regain her composure.

"Who do you think?" Harry replied.

Tracy's face twisted in revulsion. "Not?"

He nodded.

"Bloody hell," the twins said together.

"So what's the plan?" Ginny asked.

They all looked at Harry, waiting. He folded his arms across his chest and studied them in return, taking their measure, then spoke in a firm voice.

"If they think we're an army, then I say let's give them a war."

There were fierce grins around the room at that.

"It's not going to get any easier from here on out, so if you want to quit, do it now," he warned them. No one moved. They weren't about to turn tail and run now. He continued. "As we speak, Fudge is probably scurrying back to the Ministry to revise Decree Number Twenty-Four. If we're lucky, he'll revise it the way I told him to, which means that this is the last time we're going to be able to meet together like this."

Neville raised his hand. "I don't get it. Why would you want him to make it impossible for us to have lessons?"

Harry grinned at him. "Not impossible to have lessons. Just impossible to meet in groups of three or more. Which means that we can still do one-on-one tutoring."

Hermione frowned. "Harry, you can't tutor us all individually. There's not enough hours in the day."

"You're right, I can't tutor everyone, but I can tutor the two of you separately," he said, pointing at her and Tracy. "And then you each tutor two people. And then those four each tutor two people. We pass it down the chain. I'll write out teaching plans for you all to follow, and do spot lessons with anyone who starts to fall behind. From here on out, everything stays compartmentalized. They'll be watching each and every one of us, so whatever else happens we can't let them catch us in groups of more than two. I know it's not perfect, but it's definitely workable."

They all started to chuckle as they realized that Harry had outsmarted Fudge and Umbridge yet again.

"That boy is scary," Fred stage whispered to his brother.

"Good thing he's on our side," George replied.

Harry smirked at them. "Maybe that's just what I want you to think."

They thought about that and suddenly looked a little queasy.

He turned back to Hermione and Tracy. "Now what I need from you two is a plan for the rest of the chain. Who teaches who and so forth. I also need you to figure out a way for the entire DA to communicate discretely. The Galleons are fine for calling meetings, but we need a way to coordinate without having to play Chinese Whispers or pass notes."

"I don't need her help," they both replied instantly.

He snickered. "Probably not. But since circumstances seem to be conspiring against me getting to see you fight it out, then you can both amuse me by trying to work together."

They snorted indignantly at him.

"You know, it's really cute when you guys do that."

They each reddened, then sneered at each other and stomped away. Hermione sat by Ginny who whispered something in her ear that made her blush deepen. Tracy took a seat near Fred and George, who popped up and moved quickly over towards Harry when she glared at them, daring them to say anything.

They took up spots on either side of him.

"Come on, General," Fred started eagerly.

"What do we get to do?" George continued.

"Can we be in charge of chemical warfare?"

"How about letting us turn the Inquisitorial Squad into our personal firing range?"

"Particularly the redheaded git members."

"Too right."

"Viva la Hogwarts!"

"Viva la Revolution!"

Harry started to get dizzy from snapping his head back and forth. "Hold on, hold on," he said, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders companionably. I've got something in mind for you, don't worry. But first I need to ask you a question." He stopped for a moment, gathering his thoughts, before nodding to himself and putting on his most endearing smile. He looked at each of them for a moment.

"We're friends, right?" He asked them.

"Yeah," Fred said.

"Of course," George said.

"And you guys trust me, right?"

"Yeah," George said.

"Of course," Fred said.

"Great. Let me ask you one more thing. Do either of you know what the word _kamikaze_ means?"

They shook their heads. "Nope," they said in unison.

Harry's grin widened. "Perfect. In that case, I'd like to officially put the two of you in charge of Operation Too Hot To Handle."

"Wicked!" they said together. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Your job is to make Acting Headmistress Dolores Umbridge kill herself."

"Harry!" Hermione snapped.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine. Your job is to make her quit." He raised an eyebrow at her at her and she nodded. "Bloody lionesses... too protective by half," he muttered before addressing the twins again. "You are hereby authorized... nay, encouraged... nay, _ordered_ to get yourselves expelled in the course of accomplishing your assigned task."

"Wicked!" the twins said again.

"But won't they have their wands snapped?" Ginny asked.

"They're of age and have already sat their OWLs," Harry answered. "They can be kicked out, but they can't have their wands taken."

Ginny thought about that for a second. "What about mum? She'll kill them if they get expelled."

"That's why he called them _kamikazes_," Hermione whispered. Ginny nodded.

Harry pulled the twins away from the girls. "Ignore them, they don't what they're talking about. The estrogen makes them crazy. Now listen. If you need money or advice, get in touch with Sirius. He'll sort you out. If you need accomplices, you can use any of the DA members who haven't already been assigned something else, but try not to get _them_ expelled if you can help it. Remember, pairs only. Got it?"

They each snapped a smart salute. "Yes, sir!"

"Great, now get to work." They stood there for several seconds, still holding their salutes until Harry rolled his eyes and returned it.

They might not have noticed the door opening if not for the fact that the twins were heading towards it. Fred was closest and dove forward, grabbing at something unseen. George quickly moved to help his brother and soon they were struggling with what appeared to be thin air.

Harry grinned to himself and grabbed a chair, flipping it backwards and settling down to watch.

"Let me go, you two!" the invisible person shouted.

Ginny's eyes widened at the sound of the voice and her mouth split in an angry snarl. She hopped up and stalked over, yanking the invisibility cloak off of Ron and pointing her wand squarely in his face.

Fred had him by the right arm. "Well, well, if it isn't our _former_ little brother."

George had him by the left. "Moving up in the world, are you?"

"First just a traitorous bastard."

"Now a sneaking rotten thief."

"Because that is definitely not your cloak."

"Even if you were the one who ratted Harry out and got it confiscated."

Daphne had her wand out and was moving forward, but Harry caught her lightly by the wrist as she passed him. "This is a family matter," he said quietly. "Let them sort it out." She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a quick wink.

Ginny's wand was practically touching Ron's eye. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hex your foul, lying face off," she said in a soft, deadly tone.

Ron's mouth opened and a painful, choking sound came out. He made a frustrated noise, then looked desperately over his sister's shoulder at Harry. "Potter!" he shouted. "Do something!"

Harry crossed his arms over the backrest of his chair and set his chin down on top of them contentedly. He didn't say a word, just smiled at the redheaded boy's predicament.

"Bloody hell, Potter! Call them off!"

A split second before Ginny was about to cast a spell, Harry interrupted her with a reluctant sigh.

"Turn him loose."

"Huh?" the twins said together.

Ginny spun around, looking at him incredulously. "What?!"

"You heard me. Let him go."

Fred and George let go of Ron's arms and he took a step back, straightening his robes. "About bloody time," he muttered.

Harry studied him for a moment before shaking his head. "The concept of a double agent is completely lost on you, isn't it, Weasley?"

Ginny's mouth dropped open. "Wait a second... what do you mean, double agent?" she sputtered, looking between Harry and Ron in confusion. "You mean Ron's not a prat?"

"Of course he's a prat," Harry returned. "I mean, he _is_ still Ron, so that goes without saying. He's just not a backstabbing prat."

Harry could see that she still had no idea what was going on, so tried to explain it as best he could. "You remember that letter Percy sent to Ron, the one where he told him to stay away from me and get close to Umbridge?" She nodded. "Well... it sounded like a pretty good idea to me as well, so I talked him into going along with it, at least on the surface. That way I could keep an eye on her from the inside."

Fred laughed and clapped Ron on the shoulder. "Good show, old chap!"

George pretended to wipe a joyous tear from his eye. "My brother, the spy."

Ron puffed up under their praise.

"Who'd have thought he had it in him?"

"Of course, you know what this means."

"Indeed I do."

"We have our own little Snape in the family!"

"OI!" Ron shouted indignantly. "I'm no Snape!"

Ginny let out a little sob and flung her arms around him. "Oh, Ron! I'm so sorry! We all said such terrible things about you!"

He embraced her awkwardly. "It's okay, I suppose. Besides, I didn't mind that nearly as much as the way you all kept hexing me when I wasn't looking."

Ginny pulled away from him and grimaced slightly. "Yeah... sorry about that."

George had picked up the invisibility cloak and was looking it over. "But what about this?" he asked Harry. "If Ron was a spy the whole time, why did he rat you out and get it taken away?"

"It was a setup," Harry explained. "I figured that Umbridge wouldn't trust him right off the bat, so I arranged for her to catch me with it, with Ron's help of course. She was so pleased that she allowed him to keep it as a reward. So you might say that I loaned it to him in exchange for his undercover work, and occasionally borrowed it back when I needed it. And since Umbridge knew that I didn't have it anymore, she couldn't suspect that I might still be using it. Much easier than trying to dodge her at every corner, if I do say so myself."

"Brilliant," the twins whispered.

Ginny frowned and turned to Ron. "But why didn't you say anything?"

"He put a spell on me!" Ron shouted accusingly, pointing at Harry. "He made it so I couldn't tell anyone!"

Ginny rounded on him. "Did you?"

Harry shrugged, but didn't deny it.

"Why?"

He frowned at her. "Let me ask you this. If you had a secret that you couldn't afford to let loose, would you tell Ron?"

"Of course not."

"That's why."

"Oi!" Ron huffed. "I'm right here!"

"Yes you are," Harry shot back. "And that makes twice tonight that you've screwed up. Once by failing to warn me that Umbridge was coming, and just now by breaking cover."

"I didn't have a chance to tell you. I didn't find out where we were going until just before we left."

"What about the charmed Galleon I gave you for emergencies?"

Ron blushed and said nothing.

Harry sighed. "You spent it, didn't you?"

"It was an accident! I thought it was a different one!"

Ginny growled. "I know what you get for an allowance. You don't _have_ any other Galleons." Ron leapt back as she aimed a kick at one of his shins. "Are you _trying_ to get us caught!"

As she began to tear into her brother again, Harry made eye contact with Daphne and nodded towards the door.

Once they were outside, she folded her arms and leaned against the wall. "Does this mean that I get a mission, too?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed it does. In fact, I have a very special mission for you. Something that's right up your alley. Something that the little lion cubs in there probably don't have the stomach for," he told her.

Daphne's lips peeled back, showing off bright white teeth. It was eager, but it wasn't a smile.

"I like to call it... Operation Sneak Attack."

(End)

AN: I may do a few more of these, depending on the reaction to this one and how inspired I get. I had this buzzing in my head even while I was reading book five. My Harry in this is a Slytherin, but it could have been done just as easily with Gryffindor Harry in OotP. All the elements were there in the book: the Decree that stipulated regular meetings and the fact that the DA met irregularly. The part with Ron acting as a spy would have been easy enough as well, and would have helped make him more than just the whiny best friend. I remember thinking that this would have been a prefect way for JKR to allow Harry to express his Slytherin side without coming off as evil, and fully expected that it was where she was going with the story. I was pretty annoyed once I got to the scene in the Headmaster's office and saw that it was just more of the same old "Dumbledore saves Harry from his own stupidity". I don't make a habit of bashing JKR and I think it's unfair that so many people do, but I really feel like she swung and missed badly on that one.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!

Big D


	2. The First Year Duel

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: The First Year Duel

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

"Dammit, Potter, this is stupid!" Blaise whined. His eyes scanned the corridor nervously. "We're going to get caught!"

"No we're not," Harry replied calmly.

"Yes we are!"

"What makes you say that?"

"Are you daft? You have to know that Malfoy's not going to show. He's setting you up!"

Harry chuckled. "Of course I know that. He tipped off Filch where to find us."

"If you know that, then why are we walking right into his trap?"

"We're not. The trap is in the Trophy Room. We're going to the kitchens."

Blaise stopped for a second and blinked. "Oh... well that's okay then. Wait, why are we going to the kitchens?"

Harry had continued walking. Blaise hurried to catch him. "Because I'm hungry and that's where they keep the food."

"What about Malfoy?"

"What about him?"

Blaise sighed. Getting answers from Harry was like pulling teeth sometimes. "I mean, what are you going to do about him? Are we just going to hang out in the kitchens for a while and say that he didn't show up for the duel? Make him look like a coward?"

Harry snorted. "He doesn't need our help with that. Besides, that would be pretty lame, seeing as we're not going to show up for it, either."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "How do you know where the kitchens are, anyway? I thought it was like some sort of state secret."

"You know Billings? That bloke who sells stuff from Hogsmeade?"

"The sixth year? Yeah, I know him. Bloody wanker charges a fortune."

"Depends on what you're buying. Besides, that's not all he sells. He sold me directions to the kitchens."

"Cool. Must have cost you an arm and a leg, though."

"Yeah, but it's worth it. I also picked up a couple of other things."

"Like what?"

"Some Dragon Ink and a whole bag of those time-delayed Dungbombs. You know, the really big ones."

"The Diarrhoea Detonators?"

"Yeah, them."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Already used 'em."

"How?"

Harry grinned. "Well... you know how Malfoy always locks his wand in his trunk before he goes to take a shower?"

* * *

"I can't believe that moron fell for it!" Draco laughed loudly. "I mean, he actually thought that I was going to meet him in the Trophy Room for some stupid duel! How dumb can you be? I just wish I could see the look on his face when Filch shows up! How did he even get _into_ Slytherin?"

Crabbe and Goyle snickered witlessly. Draco strolled over to his trunk, still laughing softly, opened it, and blinked.

"Hey... where's my wand?"

He reached in and pulled out a small piece of folded parchment that hadn't been there before.

_Git,_

_It's not going to be quite that easy._

_Your wand is laying on the floor of the Trophy Room. If you run fast, you might get there before Filch does. If you run really fast, you might even get there before the dungbombs go off. If you don't run at all, then you'll get caught in the morning once the teachers start looking for the student who doesn't have a wand._

_Good luck._

_XXXOOO,_

_Scarhead_

_PS: This is your last warning. Don't fuck with me. And, by the way, you should really get a trunk with a better lock on it. I picked this one with a paper clip._

Draco's eyes widened. Suddenly, the ink on the parchment flashed red and the entire thing burst into flames.

"GAAAA!!!!" he screamed shrilly, jumping back and letting go of the flaming letter, which crumbled into ashes before it even hit the floor.

His heart pounded in his chest and he found himself staring ahead blankly. After a second, he realized that he was looking right at Potter's trunk, a great, ghastly-looking, iron-bound thing with no less than three complicated magical padlocks on it. When he had first seen it, he had burst out laughing at how ugly it was, and had asked Potter if he planned to hide in it to get away from the big, bad Slytherins.

Now he wished he'd had one just like it.

With five locks.

Breaking into a dead run, he shoved Flint to the ground on his way out of the Viper's Den. He ran up the tunnel as fast as he could, cursing the Founders for placing the Slytherin dorms all the way out under the Black Lake. It seemed to take forever to reach the exit into the dungeons, then twice as long to navigate the still-unfamiliar twists and turns that led to the first floor. He ducked a water balloon from Peeves as he passed the Muggle Studies classroom and shouted over his shoulder at the foul creature that he would be sorry he did that.

"AAAHHHH!!!"

His feet flew out from under him as he slipped on a puddle left by one of the balloons the poltergeist had already thrown and crashed hard on his back. His right elbow hit the ground awkwardly and he thought he heard something pop as a vicious, stabbing pain filled his arm. Grasping his injured arm and holding it close, he staggered up the stairs to the third floor. It looked empty, and he couldn't smell any Dungbombs. Maybe Potter was bluffing.

He crept towards the door to the Trophy Room, glanced around carefully, and eased it open.

Only to see Argus Filch standing in the center of the room, holding his wand and looking at it curiously.

He blinked and peered at Draco. "Aren't you the little beast who told me that someone was going to be slinking around in here after hours?" he croaked.

Draco couldn't speak. He couldn't think. He couldn't even breathe.

Filch opened his mouth again, and at that very second there was a sound like a thousand fat men all breaking wind at the same time. From every corner of the room, foul, rancid, partially-liquified brown sludge exploded outwards, coating everything in a thick, dark, curdled mess.

All Draco could do was shut his eyes as he was hit by the shower of disgusting filth. When he opened them, it was to see Filch spitting out mouthfuls of brown goo and trying not to retch. Every inch of the man had been covered in dung, and it was only then Draco realized that Mrs. Norris was also there with him. The skinny, bad-tempered cat looked like a pile of runny elephant droppings with wide yellow eyes. Eyes which stared at him with a look that promised murder.

It was then that Draco found his voice.

"I hate you, Harry Potter."

(End)

AN: Someone asked for a little first year Slytherin!Harry and this came to me last night while I was at work. Not too long, but loads of fun to write.

Big D


	3. Victimizing Viktor

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: Victimizing Viktor

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

Part One of Taking Out the Competition: A Triwizard Mini-Series

(Before the First Task)

"Go avay, Potter," Krum muttered in his deep Slavic accent.

"What'cha doin'," Harry asked brightly, ignoring him.

"Reading," he grunted.

"Reading what?"

"A book."

"What kind of book?"

Krum closed his eyes and sighed.

"How 'bout this," Harry said quickly, "If you can tell me the title of the book in your hands without opening your eyes and looking down at it, I'll leave you alone for as long as you want."

Krum squinched his eyes shut and tilted his head, clearly trying to remember. He looked a little constipated. Harry grinned and sat down across from him at the table, leaning in conspiratorially.

"It's Granger, isn't it?" he whispered.

There was a loud thump as Viktor fumbled the book in surprise and it landed hard on the table.

"Vhat! No! Vhat do you mean?" he squeaked. His voice wasn't made for squeaking. It sounded like metal creaking under pressure.

"SHHHHH!" The overly loud noise came from Madame Pince behind the counter. Horrid old bitch. Harry was certain that she waited until everyone was asleep and writhed around naked on great big piles of books. Merlin only knew what kind of paper cuts she was hiding under those robes. He kept nipping into the library late at night with his invisibility cloak, trying to catch her in the act and take pictures, but no such luck yet.

Probably for the best. He'd love to catch her, but hate to have gouge out his own eyes.

Anyway...

"So... Granger, huh?" He glanced over his shoulder to where she had set up camp. The Gryffindor girl was surrounded by a wall of thick, heavy books, but the table he and Krum were sitting at was at just the right angle to let them peer through a crack in the wall and see her face twisted in concentration as she revised what Harry guessed to be an Arithmancy assignment. There were light ink smudges on her left cheek and he fought down a leering grin as she stuck a quill into her mouth in an unconsciously, undeniably sexy manner.

He had to admit that Krum had taste. "She's the reason you've been playing Phantom of the Library?" he asked.

Krum glowered. "I don't know vhat you are talking about. I am just reading. Preparing for the Tournament, as you should be. Now go avay!"

"She comes here to work, not be stalked."

"I am _not_ stulking her," Krum snapped quietly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "No, you're just making sure to be wherever she is and watching her obsessively without her knowing you're there. That's not stalking her at all."

He slumped in his chair slightly. "Vhy are you bothering me, Potter? To varn me avay? Is that it? Do you vant her for yourself?"

"Nah, I'm seeing someone," Harry waved him off. "Or two. Or three. I lose track sometimes. No, Viktor, you're misunderstanding me completely. I'm not here to stop you, I'm here to help you."

Krum regarded him warily. "Help me? How?"

Harry leaned in a little closer. "Listen... Granger's a friend, but Zeus knows she needs to let that big bundle of hair down every once in a while. I figure a boyfriend would be good for her, and you seem like a decent enough bloke, so I'm thinking: why not give you a little push in the right direction, seeing as you're having so much trouble getting there yourself." He frowned and tilted his head to the side. "What's up with that, anyway? I mean, you're Viktor Krum. Famous International Quidditch Star and all that rot. Surely you can't have any problem getting girls. The evidence speaks for itself." He jerked a thumb at a cluster of seventh year females who had been drifting closer while he and Krum were chatting. They squeaked at being noticed and scattered like roaches.

Krum sneered at fleeing girls. "Those girls are... boring, empty, useless. She is different."

She was also fourteen, and he was seventeen. There were countries where that was against the law. Britain was one of them, but who's counting?

"So why don't you go over there and ask her out?" Harry said. "I'll introduce you."

He paled and gulped. "I could not."

"Why?"

"Vhat if she said no?"

"Then you knock her over the head and have your way with her while she's unconscious."

Krum's eyes widened.

"That was a joke."

"It vos not a funny one."

"Neither is you sitting here pretending to read _Male-to-Female Self-Transfiguration in Three Easy Steps_."

The Bulgarian Seeker jumped and looked down at his book. _An Advanced Guide to Defensive Magic_ stared back up at him. He glared at Harry, who only rolled his eyes.

"Listen, if you're really that worried about getting shot down, then how about doing something to tweak the odds in your favor a little bit before you try?"

"Vhat do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

Harry smiled widely at him. "Well... you see, we just happen to be sitting in one of the most comprehensive magical libraries in the entire world, and not very far beneath our feet is a world-class Potions Lab. Put the two together and it equals you and Granger, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

He looked appalled. "I vill _not_ give her a love potion!" he hissed.

Harry chuckled at him. "That's good to know, and I'm proud of you, but it wasn't what I was getting at."

"Then vhat?"

"Have you ever heard of Felix Felicis?"

Krum took in a short breath. "The luck potion?" he asked, half speaking to himself.

Harry could tell that he wouldn't even have to sell him on it. He could practically see the gears turning in Krum's head. Felix would assure that Krum's chances of getting Hermione to say yes were as good as they could possibly get, and likely wouldn't even let him ask the question if the answer was going to be no.

He reached over and patted the boy on the shoulder. "I gotta go, Viktor. My work here is obviously done. I'll see you later." Krum waved absently at him, muttering to himself. Harry nodded at Pince on his way out of the library. She gave him a dirty look in return, like she knew exactly what he was thinking. Maybe he could convince Myrtle to stake out the Library for him, just to keep an eye on things. He could very well be wrong, and the Hogwarts Librarian wasn't sexually attracted to the smell of musty parchment and old leather after all, but nothing healthy could come out of an obsession as intense as what she felt for those damn books. It was practically his civic duty to find out what the hell she was up to.

Time to pay a visit to the girl's lavatory.

* * *

Several days later, with the First Task rapidly approaching, Harry was summoned to the Hospital Wing. He peeked his head through the door and saw Dumbledore and Karkaroff standing near a curtained-off bed. Dumbledore spotted him and beckoned him closer. The normal twinkle was nowhere in sight and he did not look amused.

"Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore," Harry greeted, coming around the curtain. "Someone said you–CIRCE'S SLIT!!! Viktor, what happened to you?!"

Krum laid eyes on him and began cursing in a language that Harry didn't recognize. He assumed it was Bulgarian. Whatever it was, it was damned loud. He tried to stand up, but couldn't quite make it. Karkaroff was there and all but dove under his prized pupil, keeping him from falling and easing him back onto his cot.

The Durmstrang Champion was very much worse for wear. His bare chest was heavily bandaged and he appeared to have splints on all four limbs. Much of the skin that Harry could see was blistered and burned, and all the hair on the left side of his head had been singed off. Madame Pomfrey had clearly been working on him, but Harry could still see evidence of multiple hexes on different parts of his body, and every once in a while his whole frame would suddenly twitch violently.

It was probably the funniest thing he'd ever seen in his life.

Of course, he wasn't about to let them know that. He approached Viktor with a comforting hand raised, but backed off slightly when the boy glared at him angrily. Harry hadn't noticed before, but one of his eyes seemed to be drifting off on its own accord every time he blinked. He held his hands up in a placating gesture.

"What happened?" he asked again.

Dumbledore opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by Snape, who swept into the room, robes billowing around him like some cheesy caricature of a vampire from one of those Late-Night-Monster-Movie-Double-Feature shows that Dudley loved to stay up and watch on the telly. Harry choked back a mouthful of bile at the sight of his Head of House.

"I'll tell you what happened," the man said contemptuously, "You poisoned him."

Harry blinked at him in disbelief. "I'm sorry?"

"Somehow I doubt it."

"Harry," Dumbledore said, giving his Potions Professor a scolding look. "There seems to have been an unfortunate accident involving Mister Krum here, and he has told us that he believes you may have been involved somehow."

"Not _involved somehow_, Dumbledore," Karkaroff snapped. "Directly and totally responsible."

Harry summoned up an indignant expression. All he had to do was think about his most recent Potions grade. "Hold on a second," he spat, "Before we break out the pitchforks and torches, could someone tell me just what I'm supposed to be responsible for?"

"Gladly," Snape said. "Are you aware, Potter, that Krum here recently attempted to brew a dose of Felix Felicis?"

Harry frowned. "Of course I am, I suggested it."

Snape nodded him mockingly, as if he were impressed that Harry had actually told the truth. "Tell me, what do you know of that particular potion?" he asked.

_I know there's a small vial of it hidden in my robes for emergencies._ "Not much. It's a luck potion, but we're not even supposed to attempt it before seventh year."

"So you know nothing of how it's made?"

_Only as much as anyone who brewed it as a third year could know._ "I'm afraid not, sir."

"Then you'd have no idea what would happen if you replaced diced springwort with diced moonwort in the recipe?"

_As a matter of fact..._ "No, sir, I don't."

"It turns good luck potion into _bad_ luck potion."

_Yep, that's the one._ Harry looked at Viktor, seemingly dismayed but inwardly cheering like Holyhead had just trounced Chudley, a thousand to nil. "Is that what happened?"

"Oh, just stop," Snape groaned. "No one's buying it this time, Potter."

"Well that works out nicely, sir, because I'm not selling it. I didn't have anything to do with this. I was just trying to help Viktor out. Are you sure he couldn't have just made a mistake?"

Karkaroff butted in angrily. "There was no mistake. The labels on the ingredients were switched." He stepped closer and glared down at Harry. "Don't you think it's rather _odd _that you suggested to Viktor that he should brew this very difficult potion, and then the recipe was altered in such a specific and disastrous manner?"

The man's breath was like a sewer. What was it with Dark Wizards and poor personal hygiene? "Yes, sir, that is very odd, but it doesn't mean that I was responsible. In fact, I think it's much more likely that the ingredients were simply mislabeled. As Professor Dumbledore said: an unfortunate accident, nothing more."

Snape's eyes bulged. "None of my potions supplies are mislabeled," he snarled. "You did it, you arrogant little sneak, and you're not going to get away with it!"

"And you have proof, of course?" _Not bloody likely._

Harry got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when Snape's mouth widened into a sinister smile. It was the kind of look that a cat got just before it pounced on an unsuspecting bird. He held up a stoppered vial about the size of Harry's little finger. "Do you know what this is, Potter?" he asked silkily.

_A scale model of your penis? _"No sir, it doesn't look familiar," he replied.

"This," he said, seeming to take relish in simply holding the vial, "Is Veritaserum. It is odorless, tasteless, colorless, and is the most powerful truth potion in the world." He was staring at Harry intently, searching for a reaction. "Three drops, and you would gladly tell me anything I wished to know, anything at all."

_Oh. Oh. Oh. Ask me if I want you to drop dead of a painful brain hemorrhage! The answer:_ "Yes, I see. Where are we going with this? As I understand it, the use of Veritaserum is strictly controlled by the Ministry."

The cruel smile got a little bigger. It made Harry vaguely nauseous. The man apparently didn't take any better care of his teeth than he did his hair. It gave him a sudden appreciation for Lucius Malfoy. He may have been a pompous, murdering bastard, but at least he was clean. "Oh, it is," he said with visible anticipation. "However, there is a precedent for it's use in the Triwizard Tournament in cases of suspected cheating or sabotage."

Oh... shit.

Harry mind reeled as he furiously tried to recall everything he could about the Triwizard rules. He had gone over them thoroughly once he'd been entered into the Tournament, trying to find an angle to get him out of it, but no such luck. Desperate to buy time and fighting not to let his sudden nervousness show, he asked...

"What kind of precedent?"

A flicker of a frown crossed Snape's face. Dumbledore answered for him. "The particular instance that Severus is referring to occurred during a Tournament in the sixteenth century. The individual in question was suspected in the accidental incapacitation of one of his fellow competitors, and chose to have it administered to him in order to prove his innocence."

_A-ha, you sorry son of a bitch. Didn't want to mention that part, did you?_ "So what you're saying is that there is a precedent for voluntary use, not enforced use?" he asked, looking pointedly at Snape.

The man sneered. "If you are, as you say, without blame in this affair, then surely you don't mind taking the potion to prove it?"

_Like there's a chance in hell I'd drink anything that came from your hands, you greasy jizzbucket._ "I don't have any problem with taking truth potion," Harry lied smoothly. "I just don't think this the right environment for it."

Snape raised a thin eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that, with all due respect, Professor, I'm not sure that you would content yourself with just asking me about the matter at hand, and I don't fancy spending the next few hours being interrogated by someone who already assumes that I'm guilty and is quite capable of manipulating any answer I give into proof of such." He nodded at Karkaroff. "And what if the good Headmaster here "accidentally" asks me about my strategy for the Tournament? That would be quite unfortunate."

Indeed it would. Particularly since the answer was: eliminate the competition.

Karkaroff bristled. "I am not the one under suspicion here," he growled.

Harry fixed him with a hard stare. "And I'm not the one with Voldemort's mark on my arm. Trust me, Karkaroff, you are very much under suspicion."

The Durmstrang Headmaster flinched badly at the sound of the Dark Lord's name, then drew himself to his full height. "How dare you..."

Dumbledore quickly moved to cut him off, flashing Harry a warning glance as he did. "Perhaps a compromise, then," he interjected. "We will limit the questioning only to whether or not Mister Potter tampered with the labels, and if did not, is he aware of who did."

Karkaroff stared at Harry intently, then nodded gruffly. Snape's lips twisted in anger, as if he were being denied something he desired more than his next breath. Dumbledore looked at Harry questioningly.

He fought the urge to gulp. Oh dear, this could be trouble. Big trouble. He could feel his pulse thump in his throat just slightly and his guts twisted of their own accord, but there was nothing for it but to nod confidently. "Fine, then."

His skin crawled as Snape approached him with the vial. Closing his eyes, he tried to picture anything else instead of the foul, disgusting man's face as he opened his mouth and allowed him to place one, two, three drops on his tongue. Ugh! He needed a shower.

He had expected the same kind of pleasant, floaty sensation that came along with the Imperious Curse, or at least to go into some kind of noticeable trance, but he really didn't feel that much different at all. Maybe it hadn't worked?

Dumbledore peered into his eyes and asked in a soft, gentle voice... "Mister Potter... did you tamper with the ingredients or labels in the Potions Laboratory?"

He heard the sound of his own voice, thick, flat, and monotonous. "No, I did not."

Snape twitched. Dumbledore nodded. "Do you know who did?"

"No, I do not," Harry replied, somewhat surprised by the answer himself.

So was Snape. He took in a sharp, angry breath, his mind working behind hard black eyes. "Are you–" he started.

"SEVERUS!!!" Dumbledore thundered, eyes flashing. "You will contain yourself! Mister Potter has answered the questions we that all agreed upon, and as far as I am concerned, the matter is now closed. You are here in your capacity as the Head of Slytherin House to represent his interests, and you have done so. Do not make me regret asking you to be a part of this."

Snape puffed up, looking between Harry and Dumbledore angrily. "Yes, Headmaster," he eventually said. "My apologies."

"Very well," Dumbledore nodded, "If you would be so kind as to administer the antidote?"

Snape clearly didn't want to do any such thing. He stepped closer and put his body between Harry and Dumbledore, speaking softly as he opened a second vial. "This isn't over, Potter," he muttered under his breath. "You had best watch your step, lest my hand "slip" over your evening pumpkin juice. Then we will find out the real truth behind all of this."

_Nice threat, grease for brains. Might be scarier if you hadn't already tried it. _"I think we all know the real truth," Harry replied calmly once the antidote had been given. "Please don't try to blame me for your own mistakes, Professor."

Snape trembled furiously.

Dumbledore sighed.

"Igor, if you and Severus are agreeable, perhaps could you both join me in my office?" Snape sent one more withering glare at Harry, then swished his robes and stalked out of the room. Karkaroff whispered a few words to Krum and followed him. Dumbledore held Harry's eye with an unreadable expression for several seconds. Harry returned the look passively and without the slightest twinge of guilt.

"Good day, Harry," Dumbledore nodded and left him alone with Krum.

Viktor lay on the bed with his right arm crossed over his face. Harry sat on the cot opposite from him. "How are you feeling?" he asked sympathetically.

Krum groaned tiredly and tried to sit up. Harry leaned forward and helped him right himself. The Durmstrang Champion studied him for a moment while Harry tried desperately to ignore that damn wandering eye. "I apologize for suspecting you," he eventually said quietly. "It vos rash of me. You vere probably correct, the ingredients _vere_ mislabeled."

Harry shrugged. "It's alright. Hell, I'd almost believe it myself if I didn't know any better."

Krum frowned. "The tall man... Snape? He seemed very sure that you vere up to something."

Harry thought it was time for just a dash of truth. Of the half variety, of course. "Well... just between the two of us, he and my father went to school together, years ago. They _loathed_ each other. I'm talking pure, hex-him-as-soon-as-look-at-him, irrational hate. And Snape started hating him that much more once my father saved his life." He shrugged. "Let's just say that Snape's contempt is one inheritance I'd like to give back." He wouldn't mind not having the rest of it, either, but that was neither here nor there. "My dad was also a pretty notorious prankster in his day, so whenever something goes arse-over-teakettle, Snape comes looking for "that dammed Potter".

Krum nodded as if it made perfect sense, which it did.

It was kinda like that commercial. Half-Truths: The Other White Lie.

Harry was dying to ask the question. "Viktor..." he said carefully, "Exactly what happened when you drank the potion?"

Krum grimaced. Then twitched again. His narrow shoulders slumped and he shook his head morosely. "She vos in the courtyard," he began, "Hermy-own-ninny." Harry barely managed not to chuckle at the way he mangled Granger's name. "I took the potion and approached her. I did not notice at the time, but some boys vere practicing with Bluugers not far avay. One of them got free somehow."

Harry didn't have to fake his sympathetic wince. He'd had his own trouble with a rogue Bludger, once upon a time.

"I tried to get avay, but I am not so fast on the ground as I am in the air," he continued. "And the Bluuger, it vos bouncing off of things and coming back to me. It hit me many times. And then the girls, you know, the ones that vill not leave me alone? They tried to hex it. Let us say that their aim was poor." He reached up and touched his burned scalp. "At some point... my robes, they caught on fire"

Harry's mouth gaped, but he managed to hold in his laughter. "What happened with Hermione?"

Krum's face collapsed in utter anguish. "The Bluuger struck me in the face and I vos knocked unconscious. Vhen I avoke, she vos holding my head in her lap." He looked up at the ceiling. "She looked down at me with such... kindness. It vos she who had finally stopped the Bluuger and put out the flames."

Harry grinned at him. "Well, see there! All's well that ends well. Girls _love_ nursing a man back to health, it makes them feel all squishy. Even the progressive ones. You know, maternal instinct and the rest. So is that when you asked her out?"

"No."

"What did you do?"

"I vomited on her."

Harry couldn't help himself. He snorted a loud laugh.

"It is _not_ funny!" Krum snapped.

Harry just snickered louder. After a few seconds, Krum's irritated look faded and he started to chuckle as well.

"Vell... maybe it vos a _little_ funny," he admitted. He hung his head again. "Oh... vhat am I going to do?" he sighed. "She must hate me now."

Harry stood up and clapped the other boy on the shoulder. He flinched in pain. "Ah, don't worry about it, Viktor. You get some rest. I'll talk to her and explain everything. See if I can't sort it all out."

He looked up at Harry hopefully. "You think you can?"

He shrugged. "Sure. She'll probably think it was really sweet that you were willing to go to so much trouble just to ask for a date. Can't hurt, either way."

Krum sighed and nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Harry. You are a good friend."

"No problem. Just keep it in mind when the European Championships come around, okay? Listen, you need anything before I go?" Krum shook his head. "All right, I'll see you later."

Harry stepped out of the Hospital Wing, stopped, took a deep cleansing breath, then peered carefully each way down the hall to make sure no one was looking before indulging in a well-deserved Happy Dance. That done, he went off in search of a friend.

Far too many Slytherins underestimated the value of proper friends, thinking only in terms of enemies, allies, and minions. Most of them couldn't look past the risk of betrayal long enough to realize that, without risk, there was no reward. Blaise Zabini was a perfect example of that.

Blaise had been the first friend that Harry had made upon coming to Hogwarts, and they had been thick as thieves ever since. Literally.

As a friend, Blaise had two phenomenally useful talents. The first was his natural business acumen, inherited from his deceased father. Once Stephen Hollings had graduated at the end of their second year, the two of them had quickly moved to take his place as Slytherin's resident distributors of all things contraband and shady. It hadn't been simple or easy, but between Harry's bank account and Blaise's head for numbers and deals, they had managed to clear out the rest of the competition, and a year-and-a-half later, had expanded the operation into all four Houses. It was a great partnership. Blaise handled the business end, and Harry made sure that anyone who tried to horn in on the action was swiftly discouraged. Or if they showed real talent, recruited.

For example, Gryffindor had been the first and easiest to fall. There, it had been the Weasley twins who ran the black market in order to fund their experiments, and all it had taken was a short chat and the promise of putting them on the payroll. They found the idea of Gryffindors buying contraband indirectly from Slytherins, only to turn around and use those items against other Slytherins to be hilarious. It also didn't hurt that Harry had once saved their sister's life.

Hufflepuff, and especially Ravenclaw had been far more difficult nuts to crack, but nothing was impossible to those willing to go the extra mile, provided that they always had a strong alibi.

Speaking of which...

"So, how did it go?" Blaise asked him once Harry had tracked him down near the lake.

"Success, apart from a near miss. Good news, though. It turns out that plausible deniability can beat Veritaserum."

Blaise's face lit up. "Cool," he grinned, pumping his fist slightly. "That'll come in handy."

"Yeah. Remind me to whip up some and run a few tests when we have a chance, okay?"

"Can do," Blaise nodded. "They suspect anything?"

"Snape does, but he'd suspect me even if I was innocent."

"Lucky that's not a state you have much experience with."

"Speaking of which, who _did_ you get to swap out those labels?"

He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

That was Blaise's other great attribute. His ability to keep other people's secrets. As the chief procurer of less-than-reputable things at Hogwarts, he was privy to everyone else's dirty laundry. Being able to keep his trap shut, even with Harry, was good for business. It also meant that when Blaise Zabini came around asking for a favor, most people paid very careful attention.

Harry would have respected him far less had he actually said who'd done it.

"I suppose not. Any chance they might talk?"

He smirked. "Not even a little one."

"Great. One down, two to go. Time to move on to the next target."

"The 'Puff or the bird?" Blaise asked.

"The 'Puff, I think. Wanna save the bird for last."

"I bet. That one's worth the wait. You gonna need me for this one?"

"Nah, don't think so. Seen Greengrass lately?"

"You gonna have him killed?"

Harry grinned viciously. "Not quite... just make him wish he had been."

(End)

AN: A few people have been asking me to redo the Triwizard Tasks with Slytherin Harry, but I didn't see much point. Canon Harry did pretty much what Slytherin Harry would have done, SH would have just figured it out quicker and been free to focus on what was really important... making sure that the other competitors were in no condition to put up much of a fight. Part Two: "Challenging Cedric" will be coming soon, but may or may not be the next installment of the story.

Big D


	4. Draco's Decision

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: Draco's Decision

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

(Fifteen Years After The First Year Duel)

"I finally beat you."

Gentle rain fell on a quiet cemetery in northwest Wales. Three gravestones stood side by side: mother, father, and son finally reunited after so many long years apart. A pale, dangerously-thin young man in his mid-twenties stood before them. Lank, prematurely-thinning blond hair was pasted to his scalp by the rain and his hands trembled slightly, a nervous tick that had developed in one far too young for such things.

"So fucking smug, weren't you," Draco sneered. "So god-damned smart. Always with some ridiculous plan." His right hand unconsciously touched the inside of his left forearm. "You got the Dark Lord in the end, didn't you, you bastard? Tricked _him_, too. Just like everyone else. Had the whole world right in the palm of your hand after that. But his servants got to you eventually. The only thing I regret is that I wasn't able to see the look on your face when you finally got what you deserved." He smiled. "Doesn't matter, though. I'm alive and you're not. That means _I_ win."

Draco looked up into the overcast sky and took a deep breath that tasted of freedom, then glared at the tombstone in front of him.

"Rot in Hell, Harry Potter."

Grinning to himself, he turned to leave. Then screamed in utter frustration.

"Hello, Iggy."

Not ten feet away, leaning against the statue of a massive angel, stood another young man. He was dressed in a long leather coat over a black shirt and trousers, and looked remarkably healthy for a dead person. Vivid green eyes were unadorned by glasses, but Draco had suspected for years that he hadn't really needed them. A tiny smile graced his lips as he watched a dozen emotions flicker across Malfoy's face before the little ponce finally settled on sulky dejection.

"Why are you here, Potter?" Draco whined miserably. "Couldn't you just let me think you were dead, like everyone else? I'd be much happier."

"I realize that, but I want something from you."

A spasm of anger went through the other man. "What could you possibly want?" Malfoy snarled. "I don't have anything left! You killed my father, you..." his face twisted in revulsion, "_debauched_ my mother. You ruined my family name, destroyed our fortune. Forced me into living like a hunted beast, like a bloody _muggle_! I don't even have a fucking wand anymore! I have nothing! You've already taken it all!"

Emerald eyes glimmered. "You still have your health."

Draco's eyes widened in fear and he took several steps back. "You're going to..." He stopped, unable to even finish the sentence.

Harry chuckled. "Of course not."

Draco let out a relieved breath.

"You're going to do it for me."

Malfoy gaped at him. "What are you talking about?" he asked fearfully. Long experience had taught him the fallacy of flat-out saying that Potter was wrong. But he had to be, right?

"I'm moving on." Harry explained, "Putting the life I've led since my parents were murdered aside and trying something different. Something quieter. But first, I need to tie up a few of Harry James Potter's loose ends. And that means... _you_, Draco Ignatius Malfoy, need to die today. And I figured it was only polite to let you do it yourself."

Draco's heart hammered in his chest. He looked around wildly, like a cornered animal searching for escape. What he saw only terrified him that much more. A dozen red-robed Aurors had surrounded the pair, lingering about fifty yards away.

"They've come to take you to Azkaban," Potter said quietly. "Old friends of mine, who know how to keep a secret." He reached into his coat and produced a heavy, snub-nosed revolver, tossing it at Malfoy. He caught it against his body instinctively. "There's one bullet, Iggy. Die as a man, or let the Dementors kiss you and live as a thing. Your choice. It makes no difference to me."

Draco stared at the muggle weapon in his hands, then looked back up at the Aurors, who had begun to walk towards him. In desperation, he tried to Apparate, something he hadn't done in years, only to find that, unsurprisingly, wards had been set up to block him.

"Goodbye, Draco," Potter said, then turned to walk away.

Draco saw his moment of opportunity and took it. He raised the pistol, pointed it directly at the back of Potter's head, and pulled the trigger.

A thunderous explosion, far larger than a simple gunshot, split the air behind Harry, but he didn't so much as flinch. Shrapnel, dirt, and human flesh struck the shield he had raised behind him. Calmly, he reached into his coat and pulled out a very expensive, thin brown cigarette, lit it, and took a long, slow drag. He touched something on his wrist and the approaching Aurors suddenly vanished. After a moment, he turned back to Draco.

There wasn't much left. His upper body had been more or less blown apart, leaving only a pair of legs that still occasionally twitched as nerves misfired in dying muscles. Harry regarded the corpse dispassionately for a moment, then shook his head and walked away.

"Told you not to fuck with me."

(End)

AN: This was inspired by the DLP Draco Kill-Off. The rules: 2500 words or less. Must be graphic. Must be funny. And whatever else happens, Draco _must_ die. I figured that anyone could just torture him to death... where's the fun in that? So I had him kill himself. Besides, I dig the idea of a WIP where you get the epilogue four chapters in.

Big D


	5. The Mud Match

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: The Mud Wrestling Match

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

About the Edit: Exactly one word has changed. There's a note at the bottom if you've already read this and don't want to go looking for it.

"How in the name of all that is unholy did you pull this off?" Blaise asked him incredulously. The young black man gestured at the huge crowd filling the Room of Requirement. The Room had been set up as a large, bowl-shaped arena with enough seating for almost three hundred people, or the entire school above second year. (Harry figured that if you were old enough to go to Hogsmeade and drink alcoholic butterbeer, then you were probably old enough to see this.) At the bottom of the bowl was a wide, shallow pond filled with thick, rather chilly mud. A sign hung on the wall opposite from the door declared: BIKINI BOOKWORM MUD WRESTLING GRUDGE MATCH.

"Well," Harry replied. "Do you remember last year, after Umbridge crashed the DA and we had to start doing one-on-one tutoring?"

"Hell yes. I had to replace three brand new sets of robes trying to teach Creevy how to cast a flame whip. Little son of a bitch has hands of stone and a brain to match."

Harry nodded sympathetically. "Sorry about that, couldn't be helped. Anyway, I was tutoring Granger and Davis, and you know how much they hate each other, so I might have mentioned to each of them that I had a foolproof, watertight, can't-miss plan to completely embarrass the other one by making them show up in front of the entire school dressed in nothing but a bikini on the first day of term, sixth year."

Blaise was already laughing. "I bet they jumped at that," he said.

"You better believe it. But I said that I would only do it for them if they in turn swore the Unbreakable Vow to do me one favor, no questions asked."

Zabini's jaw dropped. "Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Granger swore to do you one unspecified favor in return for you getting Davis to humiliate herself in a bikini, then Davis swore to do you one unspecified favor in return for you getting Granger to humiliate _herself_ in a bikini?"

"That's about the size of it."

"What did they say when they found out that the favor you wanted was for them to mud wrestle each other in front of the whole school?"

"You don't want to know."

"You realize they're going to kill you once this is over."

He shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm pretty sure they both thought that I was planning on using my favor to shag them, and the idea didn't seem to bother them all that much, so I think I might get away with it if I play my cards right. Besides, they can't kill me, I'm the Chosen One."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "Chosen, maybe. Deranged, definitely."

Ernie Macmillan stepped up onto a small platform across the way from them and placed his wand to the side of his neck. He had pestered Harry from the second they'd stepped on the train to school about being allowed to emcee this, and Harry had been forced to either give in or kill him and bury him in a shallow grave. He still wasn't sure he'd made the right choice.

"WELCOME... ONE AND ALL, TO THE FIRST ANNUAL SIRIUS BLACK MEMORIAL BIKINI MUD WRESTLING MATCH!!!" the poncy Hufflepuff bellowed.

Blaise leaned towards him. "First annual?" he asked.

Harry grinned and nodded. "Next year's gonna be the Patil twins. But they don't know that yet, so keep it under your hat."

"Let's worry about surviving this one first, shall we?" Zabini said, shaking his head in amusement.

"Pussy."

"ENTERING FIRST... WEIGHING IN AT: NONE OF YOUR BLOODY DAMN BUSINESS... SHE'S THE BUSHY-HEADED BRAINIAC... THE TIME-TRAVELING TEACHER'S PET... THE GIRL VOTED MOST LIKELY TO BECOME HEADMISTRESS OF HOGWARTS... I GIVE TO YOU... HEEERRRR-MYYYY-O-NEEEEE... GRAAAAAIN-GERRRR!!!"

Blaise was making gagging noises. "Great Hades, did you let him write that himself?" he asked disgustedly.

"I've been under torture curses that were less painful than listening to him whine," Harry admitted sadly. "I would have signed over the Black Family Trust to make him shut up."

The house lights dimmed and a narrow spotlight from nowhere landed on a small curtain set to Macmillan's left. A sharp, militaristic drumbeat, also from nowhere, sounded in the background as the curtain parted to reveal a determined-looking Hermione Granger, head held high, her normally rather frizzy brown hair tamed into a luxurious mane that cascaded down past her shoulders. She was dressed in a hip-length red silk robe that was pulled closed over her upper body, but left displayed a pair of long, firm, nicely tanned legs that, after a very pleasant journey, led to dainty bare feet.

Eyes fixed firmly forward, as if she could vanish the crowd by simply refusing to acknowledge them, she stepped out into the arena and up to the edge of the muddy pond. Her facade of proud indifference cracked slightly as she fumbled nervously at the belt of her robe, and by the time she had it undone, her face was red enough to match the dozens of banners that the Gryffindor faithful had brought out to support her with. She held the robe around her for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and allowed it to slip off her shoulders and fall away.

The crowd leapt to its feet and roared in thunderous approval. Somewhere in the back, a wall-shaking chant sprang up, as if they were at a Quidditch match.

"MORE-MORE-GRYFF-IN-DOR!!! MORE-MORE-GRYFF-IN-DOR!!!"

Blaise shouted into Harry's ear. "You reckon they're cheering her on, or trying to get her to lose the rest of her kit?"

Harry grinned. "Both!" His smile faltered slightly when he glanced back at Hermione and saw her glaring at him with a look that promised slow, terrible, and painful revenge at the first possible opportunity. He blew her a two-handed kiss and she bared her teeth at him. It would've been damned sexy, had it been directed at anyone else.

It was pretty sexy anyway. He had been rather vague in his description of just what a bikini should look like to Winky, other than that it should be "small", and she had obliged with something that looked like it would barely fit a house-elf. The scant collection of string and cloth was scarlet trimmed with gold, and magic was the only force in existence that could have prevented Granger's cups from running over, given the outward growth spurt she'd undergone between fourth and fifth years. If he squinted, he could just barely make out a tiny Gryffindor emblem stitched into the fabric over her left breast, and was also able to deduce that it was getting pretty cold down there on the floor.

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Harry wasn't a cruel man. After all, just because he was willing to trick two of his closest friends into degrading themselves in front of hundreds of horny teenagers for no other reason than to prove that he could, didn't mean that he wasn't going to give them every opportunity to prepare themselves. He'd made certain that they'd both had the entire summer to make sure they were in the best shape possible before being forced to strut their stuff before an audience.

Granger had clearly taken advantage.

Wherever it was that she had gone for the holidays, it was obviously somewhere with plenty of sun and privacy, because she sported a rich, warm brown tan that was clearly of the all-over variety. And while she was displaying more than her fair share of soft, round curves, it was apparent that she had gone to great lengths to rid herself of any leftover "puppy fat". The result was an image that was burning itself into the retinas of an entire generation of young wizards, and would fuel many a wank session in the coming weeks.

Blaise was staring just as hard as anyone else, but was distracted by someone near the door waving for his attention. Romilda Vane was a fourth year Gryffindor who had decided last year that the best way to prove her bravery was by bedding Harry, and had joined the DA in hopes of doing just that. Her plan had involved pretending to fall behind during her tutoring sessions so she could get some alone time with him. She was attractive enough, but needed a little more time on the vine to ripen properly, so Harry had put her to work apprenticing under Fred and George, so that she could take their places as his contact in Gryffindor House when they left. She had taken to the job like a duck to water, and was now flashing a series of hand signals at Blaise. A few feet away, Draco Malfoy stood with his arms folded, glaring at her impatiently.

Blaise nodded and nudged Harry. "Malfoy wants to put fifty galleons on Davis. We might not be able to cover that if she wins," he said quietly.

"Take his bet, then kick him out," Harry answered instantly.

Zabini chuckled and flashed another series of hand signals at Romilda. She grinned and got Draco to sign a magically-binding betting slip before motioning to a pair of tall Hufflepuffs, Beaters, if Harry wasn't mistaken, who "escorted" young Mister Malfoy to the exit by taking each of his arms and simply lifting him off the ground. He was so infuriated that, for a split-second, Harry almost thought he saw a spot of color in his cheeks.

"What if he wins?" Blaise asked.

Harry shrugged. "If he wins, I'll cover it myself. But I'll be damned if I'm going to pay him _and_ let him watch."

"What if he loses?"

"If he loses... well, it's probably best that he doesn't see. It would only break his poor little heart."

Blaise shook his head, but simply went back to watching Granger. She had closed her eyes and was psyching herself up by taking deep, even breaths and bouncing lightly on her toes, which did all kinds of marvelous things to her upper body. Harry wondered for a moment if she had actually managed to convince herself that no one was watching, or if she was so focused on the upcoming match that she didn't realize what kind of show she was putting on.

Needless to say, the percentage of wank sessions she was inspiring had just gone way up.

Not far away, Ernie's head was nodding in time with each of Granger's bounces, which meant that he didn't notice that the spotlight had shifted to his right and a soft horn had begun to play a snake charmer's theme in the background. He managed to catch himself in time and began Tracy's introduction, in a slightly more broken voice than he'd been using before.

"ENTERING SECOND..." he warbled, then cleared his throat and continued. "WEIGHING IN AT: GET OUT OF MY FACE BEFORE I HEX YOU... SHE'S THE TINY TERROR OF TRANSFIGURATION... THE HALF-PINT, HALF-BLOOD PRINCESS... THE GIRL VOTED MOST LIKELY TO BECOME MINISTER OF MAGIC... PLEASE WELCOME... TERRRR-AAACEEEE-DAAAAAA-VIIIIIISSS!!!"

Blaise cringed. "Tiny terror?" he said to Harry, "Half-pint?" He shook his head. "You might have to wait in line for Davis to kick your ass."

Harry could only nod in disbelief. Macmillan had to be just as suicidal as he was pompous to mention Davis' height like that. Then another thought occurred to him. _Ah... hell, she's probably going to blame this on me, too._

Tracy hadn't bothered to wait for her curtain to open, she had come barging out as soon as she heard Ernie's description of her and was glaring at the Hufflepuff prefect with a look that could have shattered concrete. He paled and beat a hasty retreat, disappearing into the mass of students before she could mount the stage and throttle him.

Granger had tried to ignore the crowd during her entrance, but Tracy, perhaps unsurprisingly, took the opposite route. She turned her fierce blue eyes on the audience and dared them to let loose with one catcall or lascivious suggestion. Naturally they obliged her by raining down whistles, shouts, and monetary offers for various sexual favors.

After all, she couldn't kill everyone, right?

Davis seemed to be considering doing just that, but apparently couldn't come up with a way to avoid the Dementor's Kiss afterwards, because she snarled in frustration and turned away from the crowd. It was probably the wrong thing to do if she wanted to avoid any more lewd comments, as her backside was considered by many at Hogwarts to be by far her most flattering feature, and quite possibly the finest example of Grade-A rump roast in the entire school. There were calls that verged on begging for her to drop the robe and show it off, which, much to her annoyance, she was soon forced to do.

In the round-heeled boots she normally favored, Tracy didn't quite reach five feet tall (something she was none too pleased about). In her bare feet, she was four feet, ten inches of stunning, blonde-haired, blue-eyed splendour, who at first glance summoned images of adorable pixies flitting about, perching on flowers and giggling musically.

Of course, had Davis actually been a pixie, she likely would have lost her membership card for the stream of vile obscenities she was spewing in Harry's direction. Luckily for her (or at least for one of them), most of it was being swallowed up by the deafening cheers of the crowd, though he did manage to catch a word or two over the din.

He frowned and made a mental note to send Hedwig back to Grimmauld Place for a few days.

Green fabric must have been in very short supply this year, because Tracy's bikini looked to be even smaller than Hermione's was, if that were actually possible. Her body possessed the smooth, lean lines of a dancer or a gymnast, and she wasn't nearly as well-endowed as her Gryffindor opponent, but what she did have looked to be an extremely pleasant handful, and jiggled quite nicely when she shook a fist at him.

And then there was that delightful derriere.

Harry didn't have the best view from this angle, but he was well aware that five years spent hauling piles of massive books up and down the innumerable flights of stairs at Hogwarts had sculpted Tracy's bum into a living, gravity-defying work of art. Trips to Hogsmeade were always notable for the chance to observe the female wildlife of Hogwarts sans their usual billowy, unflattering school robes, and many a young wizard only considered his day complete after he had snuck a glimpse of Davis striding through town in her painfully tight denims and those wonderful boots that gave her just the right lift to drive every male behind her insane.

Blaise tapped him on the arm. "What's Weasley doing?"

Ron had emerged from the crowd and was striding towards the mud pit with a massive grin on his face. His feet were bare and he was dressed in a black and white striped shirt and a pair of black shorts. He stepped into the pit and beckoned the two girls towards him.

"I told him he could be the referee," Harry explained. "I figured I still owed him one for spying on Umbridge last year."

Zabini made a face. "But he was a horrible spy! And didn't you let him use your father's cloak in exchange for that?"

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, but once the twins found out that he was working for me, they decided that the best way to help him keep his cover would be to start pranking him twice as hard as they had been when they'd thought he was actually a rat. I don't think he got a full night's sleep until after they left."

"Oh..." Blaise nodded.

"And then when they did leave, Ginny decided to take over," Harry continued. "I'm pretty sure he didn't get any sleep at all after that." He shook his head. "That girl can be pretty vicious when she puts her mind to it. Can't help but wonder if she still has a little bit of Tom Riddle left in her."

"I doubt it," Blaise said wisely. "It's like I keep trying to tell you. No one will fuck you over quite like family will. You should be grateful you're an orphan."

"What are you talking about? Your mum's alright."

"If you were about five years older, she'd have already married you and killed you off for the inheritance."

"Not if I killed her first."

Blaise looked at him sideways, then shrugged. "Good point."

Ron had gotten Tracy and Hermione into the pit with him, but seemed to have forgotten what he was supposed to do next. He just kept looking from one nearly-naked girl to the other with a big goofy smile on his face until Davis finally smacked him on the arm.

He blushed and cleared his throat. "All right, then," he barked, trying to sound official. "This is how it's gonna be. Victory is by pin-fall or submission, and there must be a winner. No punching. No kicking. No biting. No eye-gouging. No hair-pulling." He pointed at each of them. "And especially _no magic._ There is no time limit."

He held a clenched fist between the two of them, then pumped it dramatically. "NOW, LET'S GET IT ON!!!" he roared.

Both girls looked at him as if he were something foul that they had just yanked out of a clogged drain. He took a small step back and glanced down sheepishly. "I always wanted to say that," he muttered.

They rolled their eyes, then dismissed him and glared at each other contemptuously. Tracy put her fists on her hips. "It's not quite the way I imagined it happening, but I knew one day I'd get to kick your ass," she said smugly.

Hermione quirked an amused eyebrow. "Less talk, more fight." She paused for a bare second, then added. "Bitch."

Davis' eyes narrowed. "Have it your way, slut," she said, then charged at Granger, grabbing her legs and yanking them out from under her. The crowd howled in approval as Hermione landed in the mud with a huge, wet splat. Davis pounced on top of her, that beautiful bottom wriggling in the air as she tried to force Granger's shoulders down for a quick three count.

It wasn't going to be nearly that easy. Hermione scooped up a handful of mud and shoved it into Davis' face, temporarily blinding her, then rolled them over so that she was on top. She grabbed Tracy's wrists and held them away from her body, trying to use her superior size to hold the other girl down.

What she actually managed to do was mash their breasts together in an incredibly erotic manner as they writhed angrily against each other.

Ron dutifully knelt down to render the three count, but seemed to lose track somewhere between one and two as he stared openmouthed at the mud-splattered duo, or rather at the still relatively clean quartet of squished-together sweater puppies in between them. His distraction granted Tracy the opportunity to wedge her legs in between herself and Granger and monkey flip the other girl onto her back with another resounding splash.

They both tried to stand, but with their hands and feet now coated in slick, gooey muck, getting proper traction was becoming something of an adventure. They fell awkwardly into each other and ended up tangled together on their knees, wrapped up in a rather intimate-looking embrace as they each tried to toss the other back down into the pit.

Tracy managed to twist her hips and sling Hermione face first into the mud. She straddled the other girl's back and attempted to shove her head into the mire, but it was only six inches deep and Granger was strong enough to get her arms underneath her and push herself up. Her entire front emerged plastered in glistening mud, giving the impression that she was completely naked. The position she was in was like some kind of odd yoga pose: legs flat behind her, shoulders back, upper body lifted up so that her breasts thrust out proudly. Her breath was now coming in heavy pants, which, combined with her slightly trembling arms, was enough to set those gorgeous globes heaving and shaking quite merrily.

An evil grin spread across Davis' face. "You know, I just realized that the rules didn't say anything about no choking," she said, slipping an arm under Granger's chin and hauling back on her neck viciously. Hermione's body was being bent backwards like a pretzel, her wind partially cut off from the forearm around her throat, which she pulled at with both hands to no avail.

Ron circled around to ask her if she wanted to give up, but was struck dumb by the sight of Granger's muddied melons quivering at him like a pair of overinflated water balloons. He flushed a shade of red that was remarkable even for him, and Harry wondered if the boy might not be in sudden need of a change of skivvies.

"Eeewwww..." he groaned to himself. "There's a mental image I could have done without."

Hermione clearly wanted nothing more than to bite down hard on Tracy's arm, but her Unbreakable Vow wouldn't allow her to violate the stated rules. She struggled futilely in Davis' grasp, but still couldn't free herself. Davis wrenched back on her neck again and she let out a strangled yelp. Through watering eyes, she saw Weasley leaning closer and felt a spasm of anger when she realized that he was staring transfixed at her breasts.

Then it occurred to her that there was something else the rules didn't expressly prohibit.

Ron yelped girlishly when Hermione reached out and grabbed him by the collar, jerking him towards her with all the strength she could muster and sending him sprawling on top of her and Tracy in a muddy heap that was two parts nubile teenaged flesh and one part gangly, freckled git.

His head conked painfully into Tracy's, stunning both of them momentarily. When he regained his senses, Ron couldn't help but wonder why everything had gone so dark. He nearly went into convulsions when he lifted his head up and realized that his nose had been wedged squarely between Davis' bodacious butt-cheeks. He gingerly tried to extricate himself from the tangle of bare, mud-slick feminine body parts he was on top of, but seemed to have no idea where he could possibly put his hands without running the risk of one of them deciding to prune his twig and two berries once this was all over with.

"Mother of Zeus," Blaise gasped, staring at the spectacle with wide eyes. He grabbed Harry's shirt and pulled him closer, but didn't look away from the pit. "It's my turn to be referee next year, right?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. "Sure, what the hell. I'll even let you pick which flavor pudding you want them to fight in."

From between Weasley's knobby knees, a blond head appeared. (There's a Malfoy joke in there somewhere, but Harry wanted no part of it.) Tracy took stock of the situation in a matter of nanoseconds and apparently decided that the last thing on Earth she wanted to be was the "meat" in a Granger/Weasley sandwich. With a disgusted grunt, she heaved her body to the side, forcing Ron off of her. Her freedom was short-lived, however, because no sooner had she stood up than she was knocked back down by an eight-stone freight train named Hermione Granger, who had regained her feet and was looking for payback.

"Oh, bloody hell."

That was all Ron had a chance to say before the breath was knocked out of him by the two of them crashing into his chest. Any other time, he would have given his last knut (which also happened to be his first knut) to have Granger and Davis squirming and grunting on top of him, but he was finally beginning to figure out what everyone meant when they said "be careful what you wish for".

Meanwhile, Tracy was coming to her own realization. The only thing worse than having Weasley on top of her was having him underneath her. She could hardly focus on fending off Granger's frenzied attacks for the knowledge that... _that_ was poking into her back. She suddenly felt very dirty, and it had nothing to so with the mud working its way into places she didn't care to think about.

Hermione growled and tried to wrap her hands around Tracy's throat, but couldn't get a firm grip with the other girl's arms in the way. Snarling in frustration, she shoved them off of Ron and sat down on Davis' chest, trapping Tracy's face between her thighs and using both hands to hold her head down.

A part of her was aware of what it must have looked like, but she was too angry to care at this point.

Ron looked over and saw that Hermione had Tracy pinned, and after taking a moment to admire the _way _she had her pinned, scrambled over to make the three-count. His hand came down once... twice... and was making it's final trip into the mud when Tracy did the only thing she could think of to save herself.

She grabbed Hermione's bikini top and yanked on it as hard as she could.

Granger's surprised squeal was so loud that it could even be heard over the ear-splitting cheers of the crowd. Her bountiful bosom sprang free of its cruel prison with at gleeful bounce, pink, galleon-sized nipples showing clearly in the partially clean spots where the bikini had covered her.

Blaise was clapping just as hard as everyone else, but his eyes were puzzled. "I can't believe they forgot to put Sticking Charms on their suits!" he said after a moment.

"They didn't," Harry smirked. "I just made sure to put a counter charm on the mud."

"Remind me to name my firstborn after you."

Hermione let go of Tracy and clapped her hands over her chest, then stared around in horror until Tracy managed to shove her backwards into the mud. Tracy looked at the remains of Hermione's top she was holding with an expression of pure evil, then hurled them deep into the stands.

Hermione watched her top flutter into the crowd and disappear. The horror in her face slowly faded away, replaced by seething, righteous anger. "Fine, then," she hissed, "If that's how you want it..." With a howl of rage, she dove at the smirking Slytherin girl and hooked her hands into the waistband of her bikini bottoms.

Tracy seemed to realize that she had made a huge mistake sometime around the point where she was yanked off of her feet and sent sprawling into the mud, fighting desperately to preserve what little modesty she had left. Her legs flailed and her fingers clawed for any kind of purchase she could find, but with pure Gryffindor stubbornness, Granger slowly and inexorably pulled the green knickers down her legs, fully exposing that beautiful backside in all its impossibly-firm glory, as well as the neatly trimmed tuft of fur at the apex of her thighs that proved once and for all that Davis really was a natural blonde.

"Pay up, sucker!" Blaise taunted.

Harry cursed under his breath and handed his friend five galleons.

"What made you think that she dyes her hair, anyway?" Blaise asked him.

He shrugged. "I only bet that she wouldn't have blonde hair down there. I didn't really care about the color, she just struck me as the clean-shaven type."

Zabini shook his head. "Don't you hate it when you outsmart yourself?"

With a final mighty tug that sent Hermione off her feet and onto her bum, Davis was fully de-briefed. Granger thrust her trophy into the air to the delight of her now adoring fans, before standing up and twirling the tiny scrap of cloth around her index finger several times, then flinging it into the back rows to be fought over by eager souvenir seekers and potential stalkers.

Hermione folded her arms underneath her breasts, no longer terribly concerned about her near-total nudity, now that the line had been crossed and there was no going back. She was, after all, a Gryffindor, and whatever else one had to say about the House of the Lion, they didn't sit around crying when there was a fight to be won. She stared down at Davis with a look of pure disdain, every line in her face and body daring the other girl to get up so that they could finish this.

Davis rose, trembling with fury and embarrassment, her pale skin flushed where it peeked through the layer of muck that coated her. Slowly, like a pair of tigresses trying to stare each other down, they stepped closer until they were practically nose-to-nose and chest-to-chest.

Well actually, it was more like nose-to-chest in Davis' case.

Tracy glared up at her taller rival, then flicked her eyes disdainfully at Granger's impressive endowments. "Big brains... big tits," she drawled. "Still just another worthless Griffy slag. Bet you love this, don't you? Getting to flash your wares in front of all these potential customers, all the while pretending that you're only doing it because Potter tricked you. I'm sure by the time you get back to your little tower, there'll be a whole line full of eager young lions, just waiting for you to milk them dry, one by one."

Granger smirked, not rising to the bait, then grabbed the cups of Tracy's top and gave them a ferocious yank that broke the strap in the middle and left Davis wearing the world's smallest green waistcoat, one that did nothing to cover her own pair of smaller, but still mouth-watering breasts. "Might as well not be the only one flashing my wares," she said cheerfully. "Who knows, maybe you can even lure a few clients yourself. After all, who wouldn't want a tart that can use her mouth without even having to go on her knees?"

Tracy had staggered backwards and gasped angrily when Granger ripped open her top, but it wasn't until the other girl taunted her about her height that she lost all control. If he hadn't been watching for it, Harry might have missed the look of triumph that flickered across Granger's face when Davis abandoned all strategy and mindlessly charged at her.

It just went to show that just because Slytherins were cunning and ambitious didn't mean they were immune to being stupid sometimes.

Granger bent low and caught Davis by the waist, using her own momentum to flip her high in the air and send her crashing into the mud with a splat that appeared to knock her senseless. Adding insult to injury, Hermione then pinned her by grabbing her ankles and pulling them back in a manner that brought to mind a particularly intrusive gynecological exam while practically sitting on her face.

As soon as Weasley's hand came down for the third time, Macmillan reappeared out of nowhere. "HERE IS YOUR WINNER... HEEERRRR-MYYYY-O-NEEEEE... GRAAAAAIN-GERRRR!!!" he shouted, but it was drowned out by the stomping and hooting in the stands. A few people were groaning in annoyance and ripping up their betting slips, but for the most part, everyone agreed that there was no real loser when it came to a Bikini Mud-Wrestling Match.

"Well, that was certainly entertaining," Harry mused to Blaise, looking to his left only to see that his friend had suddenly disappeared. He frowned and glanced around. It seemed that everyone in his immediate vicinity had cleared out almost a soon as the match had ended. It didn't take him long to figure out why. With the match over and the Vow fulfilled, being next to him was probably the least safe place in Hogwarts.

He grimaced and looked down at the pit. Hermione stood in the middle with her hands on her hips, gloriously naked and sizing him up the way an executioner looks at a man on the gallows. He flashed her a winning smile and subtly gripped his wand. He could handle this. After all, they weren't armed.

Behind her, Ron was trying to help Davis up, while pretending that he wasn't ogling her for all he was worth. She hissed and shook off his hand, then snatched at something sticking out of his belt and pointed it at Harry.

Harry reminded himself to strangle Weasley at the next convenient opportunity.

"Accio Asshole!!!" she screamed.

He barely had time to wonder if the "asshole" part had been an exclamation or a spell modifier before he was yanked out of his seat and sent hurtling face first into the mud. Suddenly, the roars of the crowd didn't seem quite so funny anymore. Instinctively, he rolled out of the way of Tracy's next spell, which exploded into the spot he had recently vacated, and raised his wand.

Or he would have, had he not dropped it during his unexpected flight. He stared at his empty hand blankly for a moment, then glanced around wildly. Luckily, he spied it almost immediately. Somewhat less luckily, it had landed right at Hermione's feet. With a vengeful grin, she snatched it up and pointed it straight at his heart.

"Now what did I ever do to deserve this?" he wondered out loud, as both girls trained their wands on him and got ready to hex him into oblivion.

But Harry wasn't the Chosen One for nothing. He dove to his left to avoid the first volley of spells, then grabbed Ron by the leg of his trousers and pulled him into the path of a rather nasty Skin-Shriveling Curse. He shoved the screaming, pruning boy at Tracy, knocking her over as he drew his back-up wand, the one that had once belonged to Dumbledore, and blocked Hermione's incoming stunner, then fired off a pair of Disarming Spells that sent the girl's wands sailing towards him.

"GET OFF ME, YOU BLOODY MORON!!!" Tracy screamed, shoving Ron's face out of her cleavage and springing back to her feet. She looked around and saw that they had both been disarmed, her face twisting into a animalistic snarl. "Fuck it! I'll kill you with my bare hands!" she growled, then began advancing on him, Hermione at her side.

Harry wanted to roll his eyes. _Now_ they decide to work together.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait– WAIT!!!" he yelled, waving his wand threateningly. Tracy and Hermione stopped just a couple of feet in front of him, fingers knotted into claws, naked, muddy chests heaving with each furious breath.

"Now, hold on," he said reasonably. "I realize that you're both mad at me, and you have every right to be. But you should also keep in mind that you're just as much to blame for this as I am." They both hissed at him. "Think about it," Harry continued quickly. "If you two weren't so obsessed with one-upping each other, then you would have told me to go stuff myself when I was trying to trick you into humiliating each other, and you never would have been here."

Their eyes flickered uncertainly as they contemplated that. "Look at yourselves," he pressed on, "You're the smartest witches in the school, but you've been acting like complete idiots. You stood up the Ministry together, you even saved each other's lives when we fought the Death Eaters last year, but you still act like wet cats in a sack whenever you're in the same room. It's stupid, and frankly it was starting to get on my nerves. I tried getting you to cooperate last year, and we all saw how well that worked out, so I figured that if you _really_ wanted to fight each other, then I might as well let you have at it."

That was total bullshit, of course. He'd just wanted to see them rolling around naked in the mud. But it sounded good, and if they actually did learn a lesson from this, all the better.

Tracy and Hermione were still flushed, but it was as much from embarrassment as anger now. They turned to look at each other. Granger raised a questioning eyebrow, to which Davis responded with a scowl, but then nodded. She reached out a hand, which Granger took. Their eyes met again, and this time they actually shared a smile.

Then they rounded on him as one. "DIE, POTTER!!!" they screamed, and dove at him, claws extended.

Harry had never flicked and swished so fast in his life. "Windgardium Leviosa!!!"

They were close enough together that he was able to catch them both with the same spell and the two of them floated into the air, a writhing ball of sweaty, muddy, naked fury that showered him with threats and promises, most of which he suspected were of an anatomically-impossible nature.

Either way, he wasn't hanging around to find out. "I can see that you two still need a little more time to work out your troubles," he said, backing away slowly and wishing he knew a way to use this charm without holding his wand on them. "I'll just... come back later, once you've calmed down some." He reached the edge of the pit and stepped out of it. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but one day you'll thank me for this," he finished, then canceled the spell and ran for his life, shoving people out of his way until he reached the door.

He made it safely out into the hall, only to see Tracy and Hermione burst out behind him, still hot on his heels.

Hogwarts had been witness to many odd sights over the last one thousand years, but none were any odder than the sight of Harry Potter sprinting down the halls with two naked, muddy girls chasing after him, howling for his blood.

As terrified as he was, Harry couldn't help but think that Sirius would've loved it.

(End)

AN: Brought to you by popular demand. Not sure how happy I am with this one. It was definitely a struggle to write, and I'm not very satisfied with it, which is odd, because I managed to work in pretty much everything I wanted to. Maybe the sheer ridiculousness of the premise threw me off. My betas (Foz and Tazz) seemed to get a kick out of it, which is a good sign, but I had trouble getting into it, which is why it took so long to write.

Still, I hope you liked it.

Big D

Deathly Hallows Edit. Here's what changed:.

He shoved the screaming, pruning boy at Tracy, knocking her over as he drew his back-up wand, the one that had once belonged to his mother, and blocked Hermione's incoming stunner, then fired off a pair of Disarming Spells that sent the girl's wands sailing towards him.

Became...

He shoved the screaming, pruning boy at Tracy, knocking her over as he drew his back-up wand, the one that had once belonged to Dumbledore, and blocked Hermione's incoming stunner, then fired off a pair of Disarming Spells that sent the girl's wands sailing towards him.

And yes, I am talking about THAT wand. So how did Slytherin Harry obtain it well before seventh year? Not quite ready to reveal that yet. After all, any idiot can foreshadow a future event, but it takes a special kind of idiot to foreshadow something that has already happened.

Big D


	6. The RememBrawl

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: The Remem-brawl

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

AN: This occurs a few hours before "The First Year Duel"

Neville rubbed his still-sore wrist as he left the hospital wing and began to make his way towards the Great Hall. Glancing out of a narrow window in the corridor, he took note of the deepening gloom outside as the sun dropped down below the horizon. If he hurried he might still make it in time to finish dinner with his housemates.

His first flying lesson had been an complete disaster, as he had known it would be. It had taken him longer than anyone else in the class to get his broom to leap into his hand, and once he had finally gotten on the stupid thing, it decided to take off underneath him, sending him hurtling headfirst into a wall, then plummeting to the ground. Madam Pomfrey had been amazed than he'd managed to walk away from a crash like that with nothing more than a fractured wrist.

His ears burned as he remembered loud guffaws of the first year Slytherins. Even worse than that was the superior smirk that Harry Potter had given him as he had been led away by the Flying Instructor. How had the Boy-Who-Lived ended up in Slytherin anyway? Shouldn't the person who defeated You-Know-Who be a little... nicer?

For that matter, shouldn't his classmates have stood up for him a little more? None of the other Gryffindors had even tried to defend him. They just hid their snickers behind their hands, which for some reason seemed nastier than simply laughing in his face. At least the Slytherins were being honest about how they felt.

He reached the stairs leading down to the Great Hall and stopped with one foot on the first step. What was the point of having dinner with the other Gryffindors if they were just going to laugh behind his back? Maybe he should just go back to his dorm and go to bed. Maybe he could just pretend that this entire day was nothing more than a bad dream.

"Pssst!"

Neville blinked and glanced around at the sound. There was no one there.

"Pssst!"

There it was again! Was someone trying to pull a trick on him? He gulped and drew his wand, looking around, his heart fluttering slightly.

"Up here, chubby!" someone hissed quietly at him.

Neville looked up and saw Harry Potter standing with his hands on the rail of a landing the next floor up. He glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then jerked his head, indicating that Neville should join him.

Neville scowled at the other boy and turned away. There were two sets of steps that led from the landing he was on. One went down towards the Great Hall, the other went up towards his dorm. Neither led towards Harry, and for that he was grateful. He didn't want anything to do with him or whatever mean thing he was planning, particularly not right now. He quickly started up the second set of stairs, intent on getting this day over with as quickly as possible.

He was halfway up when the stairway began to move. He held on tightly as it shifted to press up against the far wall, leading towards Harry's platform. He glared up at the smiling Slytherin boy, who had moved to lean against the top bannister.

"Go away, Potter," Neville said, hating how frightened and nervous his voice sounded as it left his throat. It sounded more like a plea than a demand. "Just leave me alone!"

"Calm down, fat-boy," Potter answered smoothly. "I'm not here to pick on you." He reached into his robes and produced a small glass ball, about the size of a very large marble. "I just thought you might want this back." He held Neville's Remembrall out towards him.

Neville wondered for a moment how Potter could say that he wasn't there to pick on him, then call him "fat-boy" in the same breath, but ignored that thought in favor of cautiously mounting the steps and taking his grandmother's gift back. He was half expecting Potter to hex him as he approached, or at least toss the fragile glass ball over the railing just as he was about to reach it, but he did neither.

The Remembrall went from crystal clear to bright red as Neville touched it, but he ignored that in favor of slipping it into his pocket and taking a couple of hasty steps back as soon as Potter handed it over.

"We–well, thanks," he mumbled, still on guard for whatever trick the other boy was planning. He continued to back down the stairs one at a time, not taking his eyes off of him for a second. "I really appreciate it."

Potter just watched him, amusement dancing behind his eyes. "It must have fallen out of your pocket when your broom took off on you," he said.

Neville flushed, but nodded. "Well, th–thanks for pi–picking it up."

"Oh, I didn't," he said causally.

Neville had backed halfway down the stairs by now, but he was pretty sure that Potter wasn't setting him up for some kind of trap, so he stopped. "How did you get it, then?"

Potter shrugged. "Malfoy found it on the ground after you left. He said something about how appropriate it was for you to fall on your fat arse, considering that your fat head must be empty." He cocked his head to the side. "You know, for him, that's actually witty."

Neville's blush deepened until he thought he might ignite, but Potter continued on as if he didn't notice.

"That's when what's-her-name–the cute little curry-muncher..." he snapped his fingers, "Patil–that's it! That's when Patil tried to stand up for you."

Neville blinked and looked up hopefully. Maybe the other Gryffindors weren't so bad after all!

"Of course, she shut up as soon as Parkinson accused her of being your girlfriend," Potter continued, dashing Neville's hopes and making his shoulders slump again. He frowned slightly. "She actually looked a little green at the idea. You don't suppose she keeps for the other side, do you?"

Neville didn't really know what that question meant, so he ignored it. "So how did you get it?" he asked, more to divert Potter from delivering a full blow-by-blow recount of all the insults that he had missed out on than anything else.

"Oh, I nicked it out of Malfoy's pocket when he wasn't looking," Potter said proudly. "He said something about sticking it up a tree, but I think he was just planning to keep it. Stupid git probably doesn't even know it's gone."

Neville nodded gratefully. "Well, thanks again," he said, then turned to leave.

"So you're just going to let him get away with it," Potter asked offhandedly.

He stopped and turned back. "What do you mean?"

"Malfoy tried to steal something your grandmother gave you, and called you every name his dangerously low IQ level would allow him to, and you're not going to do anything about it?"

Neville shrugged ashamedly. "What can I do? He'd just hex me into next week."

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "I think you might be overestimating him. Trust me, I go to class with the little turd."

That made Neville smile for a moment. "But even if I tried, Crabbe and Goyle would knock my head off," he countered.

"So?"

Neville glared at him. "What do you mean–so? I'd much rather finish school with all the limbs I started with, thank you very much."

Potter chuckled. "Well then you're probably going to the wrong school," he sagely pointed out.

Neville didn't answer and Harry sighed in disappointment. He climbed down the stairs until he was just above Neville and sat down. "You know what your problem is," he said, "You worry too much."

"What, just because I don't want to get beat up?"

"Better that than being a chubby doormat for wankers like Malfoy," Potter scoffed.

Neville was starting to get angry. "That's easy for you to say. Like you would even understand."

Harry head snapped towards him, eyes glinting dangerously, and Neville took an involuntary step back. "Here's what I understand," he growled. "No one's ever gonna stand up for you if you don't have the balls to do it yourself."

Neville opened his mouth, but Harry rode right over him.

"I saw you when Hooch led you away, sniffling like a little girl and hoping no one would notice." He stood up and glared at Neville. "You know why no one likes you," he sneered. "You know why everyone–and I do mean everyone in this _entire_ school, including the teachers–makes fun of you behind your back?" He stepped even closer, and Neville felt his back strike the wall behind him. "It's because you're a sad, pathetic little nothing and you _deserve_ it."

Potter's words were like body blows, coming one after another, and Neville hunched over as if to protect himself from them. The other boy shook his head in disgust, then said something that caught Neville by surprise.

"You know, I used to be just like you. Scared of my own shadow, always thinking that other people were better than me. Too worried about getting in trouble to realize just how much my life sucked."

The anger seemed to go out of him somewhat, and he sat back down on the steps. Neville felt an urge to run, but forced himself to sit down as well. Almost a full minute passed, with Harry staring off into space and not saying a word.

"Everyone around here thinks I grew up like some little prince," he snorted, then flashed an wryly amused glance at Neville. "Too bad for them I didn't."

Neville had no idea what the other boy was talking about, but nodded anyway. It seemed like the safest course.

"When I was eight years old," Harry continued, leaning in a little closer and speaking in a soft voice, "I found a little baby bird laying in our neighbor's garden. I reckoned it must have fallen out of it's nest, but I couldn't see where the nest was. So I picked it up and stuck it inside my jacket. For three days I hid it from my relatives, sneaking it food and water when I could. I thought that if I could nurse it back to health, I could set it free and no one would ever know."

He stopped and frowned to himself, then shook his head.

"What happened?" Neville prodded.

Potter shrugged. "My aunt found it, of course. Baby birds aren't exactly known for their ability to keep quiet. While I was at school, she wrapped up in a towel and stuck it out on the back patio. Do you know what she did with it?"

Neville shook his head.

"She waited until I came home, screamed at me for about an hour, then dumped in on the ground, right in front of me, and crushed it flat with the heel of her shoe."

Neville gaped at him.

"And then she made me clean it up."

Neville thought he might be sick.

"I learned a very important lesson that day," Potter finished. There was no particular inflection in his voice. No horror, no sadness, nothing except a calm recitation of fact. "You know what it was?"

Neville shook his head.

"That it's better to be the shoe than the baby bird."

In spite of himself, Neville snorted a laugh.

Harry leaned in close again. "So let me ask you this... which one do you want to be?"

* * *

Blaise glanced around as he left the Great Hall. Harry had mentioned something about needing to run an errand and had taken off without eating dinner. He jumped when a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a nearby suit of armor. His wand was halfway free before he realized that it was Harry. 

"Where did you go," Blaise asked, but Harry just put a finger to his lips and pointed at the door leading from the Great Hall. Malfoy was leaving, his twin shadows still stuffing their faces back at the Slytherin table.

"Watch..." Harry whispered.

Blaise looked over at Malfoy and grimaced. "It's Malfoy," he said derisively. "I've seen him bef..."

He stopped and gaped as someone pushed through the crowd and slugged Malfoy right in the mouth. He gaped even more when he realized that it was Neville Longbottom.

"I WANT MY REMEMBRALL BACK, MALFOY!!!" Longbottom shouted, jabbing his finger angrily at the fallen Slytherin, who was holding his jaw in complete shock. "I BETTER HAVE IT BY BREAKFAST, IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU!!!" Without another word, the pudgy Gryffindor turned on his heel and stormed off.

Blaise glanced at Harry, who's mouth was set into a wide grin. "What in Merlin's name was that?!?" he asked, then frowned briefly. "Wait, I thought _you_ had Longbottom's remembrall?"

Harry shrugged. "I gave it back."

Blaise shot him a confused look. "Hold on... if you gave it back, then why did..." His eyes widened in realization and he barked a laugh. "Oh, I get it... Longbottom shows up in the morning with it, and everyone thinks that Malfoy messed his pants and handed it over." He shook his head. "That's genius... evil genius, but genius all the same."

Harry made a mock bow. "I try." He jerked his head to the side. "Come on, let's be neighborly and go check on our housemate."

Malfoy was still brushing himself off and muttering dire promises under his breath as they approached. A slight bruise was beginning to form on his jaw, but that had more to do with his lack of skin color than how hard Longbottom had hit him.

"What do you want, Potter," he spat as they approached. "Why don't you take your pet monkey and get out of my face."

Blaise's eyes flashed in anger, but he gave no other sign that he had heard Malfoy. One of the first lessons his mother had ever taught him was that revenge was a dish best served unexpectedly. He filed the comment away and let Harry do his thing.

"That's tough talk for a guy who just got smacked around by an ickle Gryffie, Malfoy," Harry said.

"Don't you worry, Potter," Malfoy shot back, "That fat-arse is going to get exactly what's coming to him."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Just as soon as you tell daddy, right?"

"I don't need my father to handle _him_," Malfoy snarled. "And I certainly don't need him to handle you!"

"Is that right?"

Malfoy stepped closer and tried to stare Harry down. "You better believe it. In fact, I'll prove it to you–tonight. You and me, wizard's duel. Midnight, in the Trophy Room... or are you too scared?"

Harry pretended to mull it over for a moment, before leaning forward and staring Malfoy right in the eye.

"You're on."

(End)


	7. Dueling Diggory

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: Dueling Diggory

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

Part Two of Taking Out the Competition: A Triwizard Mini-Series

AN: This is written from Cedric's perspective. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I that thought it might be interesting to give a view of Harry's manipulations from the perspective of the victim. If Harry comes off as an arrogant ass in this, that's because he is one. I think of Slytherin Harry like this. On a good day, he's an antihero. On a bad day, he's a villain. Most of the time he's just a dangerously intelligent, functional sociopath who fucks with people's lives for his own personal amusement and profit. This time, it's Cedric's turn.

That being said... hope you enjoy it.

(During the Yule Ball)

Cedric glanced mournfully at the inches-wide gap that separated himself from Cho as they danced. He had been ecstatic when she had _finally_ agreed to accompany him to the Ball, but right now he couldn't help but wonder if she even wanted to be here at all.

It wasn't that she was being rude or difficult. If anything, she had been unfailingly polite and every inch the proper escort from the moment he had taken her arm in the Ravenclaw common room and led her down towards the Great Hall. It just felt like there was no... spark coming from her. Like there was some kind of invisible wall between them that soaked up any potential chemistry.

What she was wearing didn't help. Her gown was beautiful, and he had told her so, but it was also painfully conservative, showing next to nothing and hinting at even less. It wasn't as if he had expected her to prance around half-naked for him, but he had seen suits of armor with more sex appeal. Her attitude towards him had been much the same. She had smiled where she was supposed to smile, laughed where she was supposed to laugh, and generally put on a good front of being entertained, but it was hard to miss the decided lack of real interest in her eyes.

It looked like he was just going to face up to the face that, as beautiful as she was, Cho Chang was simply a cold fish.

"Would you like to trade?"

Cedric looked up and saw Harry Potter standing off to the side, an warm, friendly smile stretched across his face and a lovely dark-haired Slytherin girl on his arm.

"Cedric, Cho..." Potter nodded respectfully at both of them, almost making it into a slight bow, then looked politely puzzled. "I'm not certain... have either of you met Daphne?" He gestured towards his date. "Daphne Greengrass, I'd like you to meet Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang."

Greengrass extended her left hand, palm down, and it took Cedric a moment to remind himself that he should probably pick his jaw up off the floor and accept her greeting. Harry was right, he'd never actually met Greengrass before, but he knew her by sight and reputation. Or thought he had, anyway. His memory showed him an image of a girl with dark hair, dark skin, and a permanent angry snarl tattooed onto her face as she stalked her way through the halls. The girl in front of him possessed the same features, but the snarl had been transformed into a slightly predatory half-smile that did unbelievable things to her full, pouty lips and heavy-lidded, dark brown eyes.

She was dressed in a flowing gown of shimmering black silk that bared her shoulders, as well as a generous portion of her back, and which scarcely seemed capable of holding itself up against the strain of her surprisingly lush curves. It made Cho's gown look like something suitable for a hunting trip in the Forbidden Forest through waist-deep snow. Cedric found his eyes involuntarily tracing the line of her collarbone to where they met just above her full breasts, and his fingers itched with the sudden desire to find out if the permanently tanned skin there was half as soft as it appeared to be.

"Cedric?"

He very nearly jumped when Potter said his name, and quickly tore his eyes away from his fellow champion's escort. Potter's eyes glimmered with a look of wry amusement, but they tended to do that most of the time anyway, and he gave no other indication that he noticed Cedric's decidedly thorough examination of his date.

"Would you like to trade dance partners," the Slytherin boy asked again. He flashed another smile at Cho, who blushed prettily, "I promise to send her back when I'm done."

Cedric couldn't help but notice Daphne out of the corner of his vision, her eyes lingering on his shoulders and chest, the smile on her lips growing a fraction, and he felt his reply get caught somewhere in the back of his throat. Trying to gather himself again, he finally smiled and nodded, holding Cho's hand out towards Harry and receiving Daphne's in turn.

Potter bowed smoothly over Cho's hand and pressed a light kiss across the back of her knuckles, murmuring something to her that was lost in the din of the crowd. Cedric had done something very similar back in the Ravenclaw common room, but she hadn't flushed nearly that way for _him_.

He was distracted from his train of thought by Greengrass stepping very close to him and slipping her slender arms around his neck. His hands instinctively sought out the sides of her waist as they settled into a smooth, slow pace around the dance floor.

He was quite a bit taller than her, and her nearness forced her to look almost straight up at him, which afforded him an impressive view down the front of her snug dress, and the gloriously rounded inner slopes of her breasts. If that wasn't bad enough, the scent of vanilla and cinnamon struck his nose, which, combined with the feel of her warm body pressed lightly against his, had him quickly visualizing Seeker formations in his mind to prevent his already expanding manhood from reaching out and introducing itself.

He saw her lips move, but it took him a moment to realize that she had said something.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," he responded, his voice an octave or two higher than he was used to, which made Daphne smile and let out a breathy chuckle.

"I asked if you were enjoying being a Champion," she repeated slowly, her lips working deliciously around the words.

Cedric discretely cleared his throat and tried to relax the tense muscles in his shoulders. _'Come on, Diggory, she's just a pretty girl,'_ he tried to remind himself. _'Who's clearly more interested in you than Cho ever was,'_ a traitorous little voice in the back of his head responded.

"It's a lot of work," he replied, a little more smoothly, "but a lot of fun, too."

"I know the feeling," she murmured, raising an eyebrow and quirking another half-smile at him.

Cedric swallowed nervously, losing track of his Chasers for a moment, then hurriedly tried to change the subject, asking the first thing that came to his mind.

"Do you think that Potter really cheated to get into the Tournament," he asked, then had a sudden urge to smack himself in the face. _'That's right, idiot. She's hanging all over you, so the first thing you should do is remind her of the bloke she's actually here with,'_ he thought angrily to himself.

She shrugged in his arms, and he felt the curves of her breasts move intoxicatingly against him. "Who knows," she replied, as if it didn't really matter. "Potter can be very clever when he wants to be, so he _might_ have been able to fool the Headmaster, but what would be the point? It's not like he can win," she finished with a slightly derisive snort.

"You don't think he can win," Cedric asked. He didn't really think that Potter stood much of a chance either, no matter how well he had done in the First Task, but he was a little surprised to hear it from the boy's date.

She glanced up at him again, and he thought he felt her move just a fraction closer. "Like I said... he can be very clever," she whispered conspiratorially, almost purring, "But he's not nearly as... tall as you are, Cedric."

He found something extremely encouraging about the fact that she had called Harry "Potter", and him "Cedric". It was becoming pretty obvious that he had gotten by far the better end of the deal when he had traded dance partners with the Slytherin Champion.

In the back of his mind a vision began to form, of him slipping discreetly out of the Great Hall, Potter's date in tow, while Harry was left to deal with Cho "The Human Icicle" Chang.

He glanced up to start planning his escape route, and his eyes bulged when they landed on Potter and Cho. Apparently, the ice had melted, because she was pressed up even closer to Harry than Daphne was to him, her cheek resting against his chest and her eyes closed contentedly as they swayed against each other. He watched in annoyance as Potter leaned down to whisper something in her ear that made her eyes pop open and her face flush red. For a second, Cedric thought Potter had said something to anger her, but then her lips turned up in an all-too-intrigued smile as she looked up at him and said something back that made him laugh softly. Cedric blinked as his view of Potter and Cho was blocked by a group of passing students.

"Is something wrong," he heard Daphne ask.

Swallowing his anger, he looked back down at her. So that's the way Potter wanted to play it, huh? Well he could give as good as he got. Summoning his most dashing smile, he allowed his hands to slip a little lower on Greengrass's hips.

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "I was just wondering if you wanted to go somewhere a little more private, so we could talk."

His heart leapt as a pleased, anticipatory grin lit up Daphne's face. "What exactly did you want to talk about," she purred softly, her fingers sliding along his collar.

He leaned down and whispered into her ear. "I was hoping that we could discuss what color knickers you're wearing, and what it would take to get you out of them."

That was more forward than he had ever been before in his life, but with the way she was coming on to him, he figured that it was the right thing to say. It certainly seemed to be. When he glanced back at her face, she was wearing a look like the cat who had caught the canary. She casually went up on her toes to glance over his shoulder and saw something that made her mouth quirk in another half-smile, then nodded at whatever it was.

Cedric frowned and glanced behind him. He saw Potter walking out of the Great Hall, leading Cho by the hand as she giggled nervously. At that second, he felt Daphne's hands leave his neck and shove him away with surprising strength. He looked back at her just in time to see a flash of white as her open palm connected hard with his jaw.

"YOU UTTER BASTARD!!" she screamed, producing a wand from Merlin only knew where (he certainly hadn't felt one when they were pressed against each other) and pointing it straight at his chest. "HOW DARE YOU!!"

He held up his hands protectively, his mind not able to process exactly what was going on, only to gape in horror as Greengrass shifted her aim towards his groin.

_"PUGNUS!!"_ she screeched.

A bright flash of blue light erupted from her wand and struck him with enough force to take him off his feet and send him crashing to the floor. It felt like some huge bloke had just used his genitals for his personal punching bag. Distantly, he heard Daphne scream again, and another Haymaker Hex pounded viciously into his back, pushing him along the floor until he slammed against the leg of the nearest table, discarded food and drink toppling all over him.

There was commotion all around him, but he had little room to think of anything other than how much his balls hurt. His hands were cupped protectively around his groin, and he thought he could already feel his testicles beginning to swell, and not in a good way. The part of him that wasn't wondering if he would ever be able to father children, or for that matter, get an erection again, was trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Behind him, he could hear McGonagall demanding that Greengrass surrender her wand and return to the Slytherin common room.

Even in this state, it wasn't hard to figure out... he had been set up.

He rolled onto his back, staring cross-eyed at the ceiling of the Great Hall, his vision blurred from the pain, and could only think of one thing to say...

"Fucking Harry Potter..."

* * *

The next morning, Cedric strode purposefully towards the Great Hall, his footsteps echoing off the walls. He had spent the entire night in the Hospital Wing, gagging on foul potions and having to listen to Madam Pomfrey mutter angrily about "unwanted and unwarranted advances", and how he "Got what he bloody well deserved for treating a lady like that".

He hadn't bother to correct her, or tell his side of the story. What could he say? That she had led him on, and then hexed him for no reason? It might have been the truth, but it was also exactly what someone who had made so-called unwanted advances would say. No, Cedric had a far simpler, more direct plan in mind, a plan that would make him feel much better than running around like an idiot and trying to plead his innocence would.

He was going to find Harry Potter, wherever he was, and hex him until blood dribbled out of his ears.

Oh yes... he'd feel much better then.

He could do it, too. Potter was a sneaking, conniving little bastard who went out of his way to avoid direct confrontations, particularly when he thought he might lose. Cedric didn't doubt for a second that he could take the boy in as fair fight. Potter's grades may have been near the top of his year in most subjects, but Cedric's had been higher back then, and he'd had three more years of schooling on top of that.

Potter didn't stand a chance.

His hands slammed angrily into the double doors that led to the Great Hall, shoving them open and nearly knocking over a tiny Gryffindor first year who was trying to leave at the same time. He glared at the boy, who squeaked and scurried off in a flash.

Whispers and dirty looks followed him as he stalked towards the Slytherin table. No doubt the Hogwarts gossip machine had been working overdrive all night long, most likely fueled by Potter with whatever story he and that snake-bitch of his had come up with. He glanced at the Ravenclaw table as he passed, but didn't see Cho anywhere. Good riddance. If she wanted Potter that bad, then she could have what was left of him.

Potter sat at his customary spot at the very end of the Slytherin table, as far away from the Head Table as he could get, and as close to having two walls at his back as he could come. Cedric hadn't really thought about it that way before, but he could see why someone as paranoid as Potter would sit there. The spot also afforded an excellent view of the doors leading into the Great Hall, which meant that the boy had already spotted him coming and was watching him approach with a darkly amused smile.

Cedric's wand felt heavy in his pocket, and he burned with the need to wipe that idiotic grin off Potter's face once and for all, but he didn't miss the way the other Slytherins were eyeing him. For all he knew, that's just what Potter wanted, for him to start firing off curses right here in the Great Hall, so that his housemates could gang up on him. He needed to play this cool.

Stopping in front of Potter, he took a moment to compose himself. Unfortunately, the Slytherin Champion wasn't willing to wait.

"Hey'a, Ced," he greeted, oozing with false cheerfulness. "How they hangin'?"

Several of the Slytherins around him snorted into their plates and Cedric gritted his teeth until he thought they might break.

"I want to talk to you, Potter," he growled, glaring at the other boy's classmates. "In private."

Potter ignored him, instead turning with a grin to the young black boy sitting next to him. "Hey, Blaise? Ask me how my night went," he said offhandedly.

"How _was_ your night, Harry," Zabini dutifully responded, his eyes shining with mirth, clearly at Cedric's expense.

Potter rubbed his hands together gleefully, glancing at the ceiling as he considered his words. "It was... _educational..._" he said, stressing the last word, his eyes flicking towards Cedric. "Do you know what I learned, Diggory?" He continued before Cedric had a chance to respond. "I learned that Chang has an amazing singing voice. Hell, when she really gets going, she can damn near break glass with just the sound of her screams." He shrugged. "Quiet girl like that... who knew?"

Cedric felt a sudden pain in his hand and realized that he had just slammed his fist into the top of the Slytherin table. "You and me... outside." he hissed.

Potter's smile vanished with an annoyed grunt, but apparently he still had one quip left in him. "Must be a music hater," he stage whispered to Zabini, who chuckled wryly. He wiped his hands on his napkin and tossed it onto his empty plate before glancing back up at Cedric, his face gone deadly serious, without a trace of fear on it.

"He also must think I'm a complete idiot," he mused, half to himself and half to Cedric. "Is that it, Diggory? Do you really think I'm dumb enough to just walk out of here with you?" He sighed again. "Here's a sickle's worth of free advice, Cedric... let it go. You lost your girl, you got humiliated... it happens, no big deal. Do yourself a favor and walk away while you still can."

Potter leaned a little closer, his eyes boring into Cedric's. "Do you know what last night was? A warning shot. You won't get another one. Keep your head down, stay out of my way, and we'll have no more problems."

Cedric felt his eyes narrow. Who the hell did this little shite think he was? "Not good enough," he growled, reaching for his wand. Several of the Slytherins reached for theirs at the same time, but Cedric surprised them by setting it on the table in front of Potter.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, Potter," Cedric told him, his eyes just as dangerous as the other boy's had been. "At least not yet. But I do want to talk to you... alone. And since you're obviously too much of a foul little Slytherin to trust me, I'm going to let you hold my wand while we do."

He watched as Potter picked up his wand and examined it, probably to make sure that it was the real thing. Somewhere along the table, he heard one of the other Slytherins muttering about "bloody idiotic 'Puffs", but he didn't care. If this was what it took to get Potter alone, then this is what he would do.

"Alright," Potter said abruptly, standing up. "You have ten minutes. If I'm not back by then..." he handed Cedric's wand to Zabini, who quickly made it disappear into his robes, "Blaise snaps it in half and tosses the pieces in the lake."

"Hey, I didn't say anything about him holding it," Cedric protested.

"Nine minutes and fifty-five seconds," Potter responded without batting an eye. Zabini causally stood and walked away, no doubt to make it harder for Cedric to find him if he chose to break his word.

Cedric growled and jerked his head to the side, indicating that Potter should follow him. Ten minutes didn't give him much time, but Hogwarts was littered with disused classrooms, one of them not far from here. He couldn't help but notice that Potter was staying behind him, and resisted the urge to look back and see if he was holding his wand.

"In here," he said, opening the door and striding through.

"All right," Potter said, leaning against a dusty table, arms folded, one hand casually inside his robes, where it no doubt gripped his wand. "What do you want?"

"What I want is to do what someone should have done a long time ago," Cedric snarled. "Grind your smug little face into the dirt."

Potter gave him a flat, bored look. "Interesting plan," he said dryly. "And you've obviously put a great deal of thought into it, seeing as you're telling it to me while we're alone in a room together and I'm the only one with a wand. Only one problem, really. If it was as easy to do as it was to say, then I'd be long dead by now. You really think that you can succeed where Voldemort, a fifty-foot basilisk, and a hundred Dementors failed?"

Cedric snorted, and Potter's eyes narrowed. "You don't scare me, Potter," he snapped. "I don't care about all that other crap, and I'm not talking about some grand adventure for you to exaggerate and lie about later. I'm talking about you and me, one-on-one, in a _fair_ fight."

Potter's lips quirked in amusement. "A fair fight," he chuckled. "You know, I've heard about those, but I don't think I've ever actually been in one before." He shook his head and glanced at Cedric again, still laughing under his breath. "God, you're such a Hufflepuff." It wasn't a compliment. "You're talking about a duel, right?"

Cedric nodded. "We take an oath. A magically binding oath against cheating or snitching to anyone. Then we find out who the better man really is. Just you and me... no one else knows."

"Oh, dear," Potter muttered sarcastically, "that's gonna make it tough to exaggerate and lie about later, isn't it?" He sighed, then eyed Cedric up and down distastefully. "Doesn't matter, really. You wouldn't make much of a story."

"No more jokes, Potter... are you in?"

He rolled his eyes. "You know, you really are as dumb as you look, Diggory. Which is actually kinda impressive, when you think about it." Cedric opened his mouth to speak, but Potter waived him off. "If you weren't so stupid, you might know that the Triwizard rules prevent us from just running around and cursing each other whenever we feel like it. It's a magically binding contract, you see, and bad things tend to happen to people who break those. Why do you think I didn't just hex you and be done with it as soon as we got in here?"

Cedric's eyes widened. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Potter flinched in visible disgust. "Please don't say that. I hate that joke."

Cedric blinked and suddenly wondered about the other boy's sanity. Even more so when he glimpsed the calculating look that flashed through his eyes an instant later.

"You and me, huh," Potter said, sounding intrigued. "One-on-one, and all that other ickle Gryffie nonsense?" The calculating look returned, then vanished as quickly as it appeared. "You know what? You're on."

Suddenly, Cedric wasn't so sure. "Didn't you just say that the rules prevent us from dueling?"

Potter spoke to him like he was a small child. "No... I said that they stopped us from tossing spells at each other like a pair of idiots. But there's more than one way to duel."

"Like muggles, with our fists?"

Potter sighed and rolled his eyes heavenwards. "Diggory, this will go a lot faster if you stop talking, okay? To answer your question, no, we can't use our fists. Or swords, or knives, or trained riding dragons, or about six hundred other things, most of which only exist in museums these days." He held up a finger. "However, the rules don't say anything about us traveling together."

"Traveling toge..." Cedric felt his eyebrows shoot up as he saw where Potter was going. "You mean a race?"

Potter graced him with a look of mock approval. "A cookie for the 'Puff! It's not a duel so far as the Tournament goes. The two of us just happen to be going to the same place, at the same time, and just happen to be starting from the same point. Nothing illegal about that."

Now it was Cedric's turn to roll his eyes. "I get it, Potter, you don't have to keep rubbing in how clever you think you are. So when do we do this?"

"Midnight, tonight. From the Quidditch Pitch to the Hogsmeade signpost and back. Bring your broom."

Cedric saw the trap immediately. Both of them. "No way, Potter. You have a Firebolt. I'm not racing against that."

Potter shrugged. "Fair enough. The rest of the Slytherin team uses Nimbus 2001s." He flashed a rather vicious smile. "Seems Lucius Malfoy thought he could buy a spot for on the team for his son. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford the talent to go along with it. I have a key to the locker where they're kept. Neither one of us rides that kind of broom, so neither of us should have an advantage."

Cedric nodded. Now for the second trap. "We can't race to the Hogsmeade signpost."

Potter smiled a far too innocent smile. "Why not?"

"Because it would take us right through the forest."

"If you're afraid, then you're welcome to go around it," he mocked. "But that's where we're racing to. Besides, what kind of duel would it be if there wasn't a chance that one of us might get killed?" His face suddenly grew more serious. "Who knows, Diggory? Maybe a few Dementors will come 'round and bail your sorry arse out again."

Cedric smirked. "Ah... so that's why you're so keen to race, huh? Still think you've got something to prove?"

"Nah, I settled that score when I plowed your girlfriend," Potter shot back. "This is just for shits and giggles."

Cedric growled again. "Midnight... I'll be there."

"Give me your hand," Potter said, pulling out his wand.

They clasped hands and Potter cast the Unbreakable Vow. Cedric had been expecting a lesser oath, but it looked like Potter was taking this just as seriously as he was. They were magically bound now, to fulfill the terms of the duel without cheating in any manner, or by any action of theirs allowing another person to know what they were doing.

Cedric rubbed his hand as he felt the magic settle into him, then glanced at his watch. His ten minute time limit was nearly up. "Bloody hell," he swore. "Where's Zabini?"

"How should I know," Potter said unconcernedly as he prepared to leave. "I'm not his keeper."

"Where's my bloody wand, Potter," Cedric demanded.

"Not here, obviously," Potter said offhandedly. "So stop asking me."

"I want my wand!" Cedric took an angry step forward and found Potter's wand pointing directly between his eyes.

"Don't push me, Diggory," he growled. "I might not be able to attack you, but the Triwizard rules do allow me to defend myself."

He took a wary step back and Potter slipped his wand back into his robes, then stared at him for a moment. "I have no idea where Blaise went," he explained. "But knowing him, it's probably the last place you would check. So if I were you, that's where I'd go."

Cedric pondered that rather odd clue as Potter turned and left the room, then cursed in annoyance as the answer struck him and took off at a dead sprint towards the Hufflepuff dorms. Which was, of course, the last place he'd look for a Slytherin who had taken something from him. But what if he was too late? What would he do if Zabini had actually broken it?

He was spared from having to answer that question when he came flying around the corner and saw Zabini propped up lazily against the wall, just a couple of paces away from the doorway into Hufflepuff House. He didn't say a word, just smiled wryly and tapped a long, slender finger against the face of his wristwatch in mock disapproval. As Cedric approached, the young Slytherin reached into his robes and produced his wand, still mercifully whole. Cedric snatched it away and glared at him, but the boy didn't appear to notice or care. He just raised an amused eyebrow and strolled serenely down the hall.

As Cedric watched him go, he had a sudden, disturbing feeling that he was in way over his head.

* * *

Cedric glanced irritably at the sky and hitched his cloak a little tighter around him as he waited on Potter. It would have to be a bloody blizzard, wouldn't it? The Quidditch Pitch was blanketed with a good half-foot of snow already, and more was falling so heavily that his tracks were becoming difficult to see. Then again, that was probably for the best. No need to leave evidence behind.

He scowled slightly. Dealing with Potter was making him paranoid. For proof, he only had to think about the fact that he'd spent half the day trying to figure out if Zabini had tampered with his wand somehow. He'd found a couple of basic tracking charms, but nothing major, which worried him for some reason. He didn't trust any of Potter's cronies as far as he could throw them, and Zabini hadn't taken any protective oaths. The tracking charms might have been a decoy to throw him off the real trail and lull him into a false sense of security, but there was no way to be sure.

"Lovely night for a race, isn't it!" a voice exclaimed a few feet behind him.

Cedric jumped in surprise and spun around, then chastised himself for doing so. "Damn it, Potter, where have you been," he snapped to cover up his nerves.

Potter grinned at him from his perch on top of a gleaming Nimbus 2001, hovering a few feet above the gathering snow. Unlike Cedric, his shoes were perfectly dry and he wasn't shivering his bollocks off. "Had to fetch the brooms, didn't I," he said, tossing a second Nimbus to Cedric.

He caught it cleanly and immediately threw it back. Potter wasn't expecting that and nearly overbalanced trying to grab the broom with one hand. "You ride that one," Cedric said. "I'll take the one you're sitting on, if you don't mind."

Potter recovered his equilibrium and rolled his eyes. "That's the problem with the world today," he said matter-of-factly, lowering himself to the ground and handing the broom he'd been riding to Cedric. "No one trusts anyone anymore."

"Life sucks, get a helmet," Cedric fired back, mounting his broom. "You coming?"

Potter stood there looking at him for a moment, his broom slung over his shoulder. "They're the same model broom, and the oath means I can't have sabotaged either one of them," he said. "So why would you want mine?"

"Because it's the one you picked for yourself," Cedric explained. "They might be from the same set, but you could have been trying to give me one that was more worn out. Chaser brooms see a lot more hard use than say, a keeper's broom. So you could have kept that one for yourself and given me the dinged up one."

"That's not bad logic, Diggory," Potter said, mounting up and moving so that the two of them were side-by-side in the direction of Hogsmeade. In the distance, the tower clock began to toll midnight. Of course, for all you know, I expected that you'd want to switch and kept the duffer broom for myself."

Cedric ignored him. It was too late to switch back, and he wasn't going to let Potter rattle him that easily. The clock rang a sixth time. Nearly midnight. He focused on the swirling snow ahead of him, visualizing the route to Hogsmeade. It was hard to keep his thoughts clear with Potter's voice in his ear, and more importantly, with the nagging feeling that, oath or not, the other boy still had very something nasty up his sleeve.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Potter hunch down over his broom, readying himself. "For the record," he said almost too softly to hear. "We're both using beater brooms. After all, you did want a fair duel, and after I win, I wouldn't want you thinking that you were anything but the lesser man."

_BONG!!_ Three...

"For the record," Cedric said just as softly. "When this Tournament is over, you and I are going to have a real duel. Tonight is just the appetizer. Next time I get to hurt you."

_BONG!!_ Two...

"What makes you think you're going to make it to the end of the Tournament, Diggory," Potter asked darkly. "For that matter, what makes you think you're going to survive the night?"

_BONG!! _One...

Snow leapt up in their wake as the two of them shot forward. Cedric put his face down until his cheek pressed against the broom handle, making himself as small as he could. Potter did the same beside him. The icy ground whipped past them at a dizzying velocity and the heavy snowflakes now seemed to be streaking towards them, rather than falling down. Cedric wobbled slightly. He was struggling a bit with the sheer speed of the Nimbus, far faster than anything he'd ever ridden before. The conditions didn't help much. He'd rarely flown much at night, and never this low. He could rise up, but that would expose him more to the swirling winds, which were blocked somewhat by the slopes of the terrain. In the open air, Potter's smaller frame would give him a big advantage.

Not that he seemed to need it. Much to Cedric's frustration, Potter had gotten a better jump than he had, and was even now extending his lead a fraction at a time. The Slytherin Champion had wrapped himself around his broom like it was a part of him and was rocketing forward, no more than a few inches above the ground, hugging the curves dangerously in hopes of pulling every drop of acceleration out of his broom that he could. One mistake at these speeds, and Potter would be dead or maimed before he even realized that something had gone wrong. He was flying like a madman, and if Cedric didn't match him he wouldn't stand a chance.

Potter was nearly a full length ahead when Cedric made his decision. If he could just stay close until they reached the forest then he had a fighting shot. No way the other boy could keep up this kind of pace up once they were among the trees. He angled himself downwards until he was at Potter's level, trying not to pay attention to the fact that he was now close enough to reach out and touch the snow-covered ground. They were moving so fast that it was little more than a white blur in the intermittent moonlight.

At first, Cedric tried to simply hold his position, but while Potter wasn't able to extend his lead as quickly as before, he still managed to keep pulling ahead. Cedric spotted the line of trees sweeping towards them like a vast, ominous cloud and cursed to himself. He ducked into Potter's wake and locked his eyes firmly on the tail of the other boy's broom. There was no way they would be able to race side-by-side in the forest, and his best chance now was to follow Potter's path and hope the other boy made a mistake. As many chances as the Slytherin Champion had taken over open ground, he was sure to trip himself up while dodging trees that were as wide around as a wizard was tall.

They entered the forest with a whoosh of fluttering leaves and loose snow, hardly slowing down at all. Cedric's heart beat a frantic tattoo in his chest as the skeleton-like branches of the first few low trees reached out and brushed roughly at his shoulders. He could barely see a thing in the dim light that filtered down through the canopy and quickly gave up looking for his own path, focusing instead on following Potter, who was making his earlier insanity look like nothing more dangerous than walking a flight of stairs. The Slytherin Champion was darting through the trees like he was on a rail, coming close enough to strip the bark right off of them with his passing. The gap between them began to widen even faster, until Potter had pulled so far ahead that it was all Cedric could do to keep him in sight, flitting in and out of the dim shadows. How the hell could he see so well in this murk!

They emerged into a slight clearing. Just ahead to his left, Cedric could see the slope that would take them down towards Hogsmeade. He was quickly resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't going to catch Potter, but he'd be damned if he was going to let that little bastard call him a quitter. Besides, the race wasn't even halfway over, and the other boy might still slip up.

He angled himself towards the slope, taking advantage of the clearer terrain to glance around and get his bearings. Potter was maybe fifty feet ahead of him, just about to the point where he would need to make his turn. He reached the break in the trees... and kept going forward, deeper into the forest.

There wasn't time for surprise. There wasn't time to figure out what Potter was doing. There was only enough time to make a choice. Stay with Potter, or follow the slope towards Hogsmeade. Cedric put his head down and kept following Potter. His rational was simple. Potter was clearly winning, so there was no reason for him to take a different path, unless he already knew something about the original one. The Forbidden Forest was packed with all sorts of nasty creatures, hence the name, and Potter was supposedly close with Professor Hagrid, who knew everything about this place. If Potter was taking pains to avoid an area, then Cedric wanted no part of it.

Still, it made him uneasy. After missing the slope in the clearing, the trees had quickly closed in around him again, so that if he tried to turn now, he'd have to slow down. And if he did that, he'd lose Potter completely. Somehow he had found himself in a position where he was now trusting his physical well being to the very person he mistrusted the most.

"Fucking Slytherins," he muttered under his breath, hating the situation but seeing no way around it.

They kept going like that for several minutes, with Cedric doing everything he could to keep Potter in sight, until he realized something that made his blood run cold. Potter wasn't pulling ahead anymore. He hadn't noticed it at first because he was so distracted with wondering why the other boy had left the path, but it suddenly hit him like a thunderbolt. By all rights, Potter should have lost him by now the way he was going, but he hadn't. He had stayed just close enough for Cedric to follow him... but why?

It was the glimmer of a moonbeam striking a huge spider web that gave him his answer.

Cedric pulled back hard on the shaft of him broom, desperately fighting to stop and bring himself around, but his momentum took him crashing sideways into a thick web strung between two trees in his path. The threads snapped with the sound of huge rubber bands breaking and he went tumbling into an uncontrolled spin. His right shoulder slammed painfully into the trunk of a tree and he felt it lurch free from its socket as the world tilted wildly around him. The pain came a moment later, but before Cedric could even draw in enough breath for a scream, something huge leapt from a tree and crashed into him with terrifying power, bearing him to the ground.

He landed with a thump that drove the breath out of him. White hot pain flooded his injured shoulder, and he thought he felt the wrist on his other arm break as he tried to brace his fall. Dizzily, he looked to his left just in time to see Potter dodging and weaving his way through the crowd of hissing acromantulas, who were leaping at him from the trees in hot pursuit, while he zipped his way through the latticework of webbing that marked the creature's hunting ground.

"Potter!!" He tried to scream, but it came out as more of a coughing wheeze. "Don't leave me!!"

It was futile, of course. In retrospect, it was obvious what Potter had done. He'd left the path so that Cedric would follow him here. And Cedric, like an idiot, had fallen right into the trap. Potter wasn't coming back, he was leaving him here to die. Cedric had expected that Potter had something nasty up his sleeve, but he had never imagined that the Slytherin Champion was capable of something like this.

There was a rustling behind him as the acromantula that had pounced on him began to stir. Cedric's entire body ached, but he couldn't just lay here and wait to be killed. He tried to sit up, but his ribs gave a sharp flair of pain that sent him right back down. He must have hurt himself worse than he thought in the crash. He reached for his wand, but it was nowhere to be found. Cedric fought down a despairing sob. Trying to stay silent against the pain, he rolled himself onto his belly and looked frantically for it.

He spotted it about twenty feet away, laying haphazardly against the root of a tree. In his condition it might as well have been a twenty miles. He gritted his teeth and pushed himself forward with the one leg he was still able to make work properly, guiding himself with his less-injured arm. The rustling grew louder as the massive spider regained its feet and began to stumble towards him. In the corners of his vision, Cedric could see huge shapes vaulting from tree to tree, skittering among the branches. The rest of the colony was turning its attention back to him, having missed out on catching Potter.

Just a few more feet. He reached out his arm in what he knew was a futile gesture as he felt the first creature catch up with him. It had taken a pounding in the fall, but Cedric had taken worse, and he knew he didn't stand a chance. It hovered over him for a moment, and Cedric closed his eyes in defeat.

The shock of dagger-sized fangs piercing his shoulder was enough to draw a proper scream out of him. As if it were a signal, the other spiders began crawling eagerly towards him, black fangs gleaming like polished glass in the moonlight.

Cedric felt the creature standing hunched over him cinch its bite in more firmly, and howled as what felt like acid flooded into his body and began coursing through his veins. Mercifully, the venom was quick acting, and he passed out before having to experience the horror of being eaten alive.

* * *

"Wake up, Diggory."

A quiet but persistent voice intruded his slumber. Cedric tried to toss in his sleep, but the motion only served to aggravate his wounds and bring him that much closer to wakefulness.

"I don't have all night," the voice said, annoyance creeping into its tone. "Wake up, already."

Cedric opened his eyes a fraction and reached sleepily for his wand so he that could raise the hospital bed up and have a look around. His drowsiness cleared a bit more when he realized that it wasn't on the bedside table where he left it. He tried to sit up on his own, but the pain in his chest and shoulder forced him to lay back down again.

"Who's there," he asked tiredly.

Cedric glanced over at the little stool where his visitors usually sat, but it stood empty. Not that he'd had very many visitors anyway, the situation being what it was. Occasionally, one or two of his housemates had come by to pass along schoolwork, and sometimes they would sit with him for a while and halfheartedly pass along a few tidbits of school gossip or ask how he was feeling before making a quick excuse to leave. The one's that weren't so polite, well they hardly stopped long enough to toss down a ragged handful of parchment, not even bothering to meet his eyes as they walked out.

He had never imagined that Hogwarts students could be so fickle. A few days ago, he had been one of the most popular and well-liked students in the school, but ever since the events in the forest had come out, he'd been reduced to a pariah. Everyone, even his own House, was blaming him for ruining Hogwarts' best chance to win the Triwizard Cup. And the worst part about it was that Cedric couldn't help but think they were right, never mind the fact that they were blaming him for all the wrong reasons.

He dropped his head back onto the pillow with a pained groan. "Merlin, how could I be so stupid?"

"I don't know," the voice said again, much closer now. "Your father seemed pretty stupid, so maybe it's genetic. I never met your mother, was she a complete idiot as well?"

Cedric snapped his eyes back to the stool and grimaced at what he saw. Harry Potter, sitting there with that smug little smirk on his face, looking down at him with his elbows resting on his knees.

Cedric held up a warning finger. "My mother is a good woman," he growled. "She volunteered to work for the DMLE during the war, back when they were losing two or three workers a day to murder or Imperius, and couldn't pay people enough to get them to sign up. You might not respect me, but you damn well better respect her!"

Something that passed dangerously close to an apologetic look flickered across Potter's face, and he nodded slightly. "Fair enough. Retracted."

Cedric scowled at him, somehow annoyed by the fact that the other boy was being reasonably civil. "What do you want, Potter," he snapped.

He shrugged. "Just thought I'd check up on you. Make sure you're doing alright."

Cedric snorted. "Make sure I haven't told anyone that you tried to murder me is more like it." He sneered. "Don't worry, Potter. The oath is still holding strong. Since I'm magically bound from telling anyone about the race, there's no way I can tell them just what a psychotic little monster you really are. Your secret is safe with me."

If Potter was bothered by his words or tone, he didn't let it show. "Yeah, that wasn't a bad little story you whipped up, considering that you were still half delirious at the time. What was it you told them? That you went into the forest to harvest ingredients for a potion you were planning to use in the next Task?"

Cedric nodded warily. "How did you know about that? I thought they hadn't told any of the students yet."

"They didn't. All anyone else knows is that you snuck out into the Forbidden Forest and got yourself mauled by something, and that Hagrid somehow found you at the last second and managed to bring you back."

"So how did you find out?"

Potter didn't answer. Instead, he reached into his robes and pulled out a sheet of parchment. "I went to the liberty of looking up a few likely potions that you might have wanted ingredients for," he said, handing it over. "First rule of a good cover-up is to get your facts straight. Pick the one you that think you'd have the easiest time brewing and memorize it, so that when Dumbledore comes to question you later you'll know what you're talking about."

Cedric frowned worriedly. "Dumbledore wants to question me?"

"If I know him he will," Potter said offhandedly. "He usually likes to wait until you've got your strength back a little before stopping by for a chat, so expect to see him sometime today or tomorrow. He'll probably know that you're lying about something, but if you're not going to make an issue of it then I don't expect that he will. Most likely he'll consider it a lesson well learned and leave it at that."

Cedric looked down at the parchment in his hand. "Why are you helping me," he asked. "It's not like you care. You already tried to kill me once this week, so how can I trust anything you say?"

Potter clicked his tongue distastefully. "I wish you'd stop saying that."

"What?"

"That I tried to kill you," he said. "Makes me feel like I left something unfinished. I don't like it."

"You did try to kill me" Cedric hissed angrily.

"No I didn't," he said defensively. "I left you for dead. That's something entirely different."

"Not in my book!"

"Well, clearly you're reading the wrong books," he said in a patronizing tone.

"Go to hell, Potter!"

Potter leaned back an sighed. "For what it's worth, Diggory, I wasn't really trying to kill you. I just needed you out of the Tournament and figured that getting chewed on by an acromantula would put you out of the running for a while." He shrugged. "How was I supposed to know that half the colony would be there?"

Cedric gaped at him. "It that what this was all about? The stupid Tournament? Do you really want to win so badly that you would do all of this?"

"Two things," Potter said, ticking them off on his fingers. "First off, ruining your life and nearly getting you killed wasn't nearly as difficult as you make it sound. Frankly, I made most of it up as I went along. If anything, you made it harder on yourself. If you had just hexed me at breakfast and gotten yourself disqualified like I wanted you to, then you wouldn't be lying in that bed right now."

He stopped and frowned. "Well... then again you probably would, considering that breaking the Triwizard contract would have made your magic to turn against you and attack your body from the inside. Now that I think about it, you'd be in a lot more pain than you are right now, so all things considered you've actually come out ahead, don't you think?"

"You're unbelievable," Cedric muttered.

"As for me doing anything to win the Tournament... well, honestly I couldn't care less. Whatever anyone else around here might believe, I really didn't put my name into the Goblet of Fire, and given the choice I'd rather have nothing to do with this idiotic game."

Cedric blinked. He knew that Potter was a natural at lying, but that had the ring of truth. "Then why bother? Why try so hard to win if you don't care? Or why not just get yourself disqualified if you want out so bad?"

"Well, like I said, getting disqualified would be very uncomfortable. Not to mention debilitating, both physically and magically. Certainly not something I'm willing to go through if I can help it. Besides, for all I know that's exactly what whoever put my name in the Goblet wants me to do."

"You really think that whoever did it is trying to kill you?" Cedric was surprised to hear a touch of sympathy in his voice, and even more surprised to find that he now believed that Potter hadn't entered himself into the Tournament.

The Slytherin Champion stood up and walked to the foot of the bed. He stared off into space for a moment, then spoke. "People have been trying to kill me since I could barely walk. Why should anything change now?"

Cedric looked at the other boy standing there and was suddenly struck by how very small he was, barely average for his age. Certainly much too small to be fighting evil monsters and uncovering dark conspiracies. But Cedric had seen with his own eyes just how easily Potter had handled the attacking acromantulas the other night, and had experienced first hand how dangerous he could be with nothing more than a few well-chosen words and a little forethought.

He thought about what he would do if he were in the Boy-Who-Lived's place, and felt a chill as the shadows in the room suddenly seemed a little deeper, a little more menacing. Like there were dangerous things hiding in them, just waiting to spring out and attack.

But they weren't coming for him, they were after Potter.

The other boy turned back to him. "As for why I want to win? Well, that's the last thing they expect, isn't it? Die trying? Sure. Win? Never." He grinned ferally. "That's how I stay alive, Cedric. Because they always underestimate me."

Potter reached into his robes and pulled out Cedric's wand, tossing it onto the bed, then nodded at him and started towards the door. He stopped and turned back just as he was about to leave. "Besides, I'd never be able to show my face in the Slytherin dorms if I let a 'Puff or a foreigner win," he said with seemingly complete seriousness, then walked out.

Cedric leaned back and lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about what Potter had said, and more importantly, why he had said it. From what he could tell, Harry Potter lied practically every time he opened his mouth, so why was he being so honest now? The answer that finally came to him was surprising. The Unbreakable Vow that the two of them had taken was very specific. It prevented either of them, by any possible action of theirs, from allowing anyone else know about their duel. That meant that the conversation they had just had was also protected, because it would be nearly impossible for him to reveal anything he had learned without risking knowledge of the race also coming out. It might be possible, but because of the wording of the oath, he was prevented from even trying.

Cedric slowly drifted off to sleep, two thoughts spinning through his head. One was that it must be a very sad and lonely world that Harry Potter lived in, where it was safer and easier for him to open up to an enemy than a friend.

The other was that under no circumstance would he want to be whoever it really was that entered Potter in the Tournament, once the Slytherin Champion finally got his hands on him. Cedric had the feeling that that person would end up regretting it until the end of their days... however short those days might be.

(End)

AN: This didn't come out quite as bad as I thought it would, but it probably wasn't worth the long wait. My apologies to those of you who have been so patient with me, and I'd promise to do better, but I think we all know how well my promises work out when it comes to updating regularly.

Some of you might be wondering about Cedric's narrow escape. I did toy with the idea of letting him die, but I like the idea that in the "evil" Slytherin Harry universe, he lives, while "good" canon Harry gets him killed for no reason. I leave it up to reader to decide whether or not Hagrid being in just the right place, at just the right time to save him was pure dumb luck, or if the real reason that Harry was nearly late for the race was that he made a side trip to Hagrid's to drop off a note warning him that some idiot student was going off into the forest alone, and that he might end up near the acromantula colony.

Coming up next, the final installment of Taking Out the Competition: "Fooling Fleur."


	8. Fooling Fleur

What Would Slytherin Harry Do: Fooling Fleur

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

by Big D

Part Three of Taking Out the Competition: A Triwizard Mini-Series

AN: I avoided using a heavy French accent with Fleur because it annoys me, and reads idiotically.

The scent of lilac and clean, freshly-scrubbed skin wafted across Harry's nose a split second before a flash of white appeared in his peripheral vision. He studiously ignored it, even when the amorphous blob began to tap its toes and make impatient little noises. Harry fought the urge to smile. The girl wasn't used to being anything other than the absolute center of attention, and clearly wasn't used to having to attract someone's notice by doing anything other than just standing there.

"I know what you are doing," she said accusingly after several uncomfortable seconds. Her accent was noticeably lighter than it had been previously, which Harry took as a sign of her seriousness.

He laid his fork carefully down on the side of his plate, took a moment to wipe the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin, then glanced up at the tall, quarter-Veela, taking the time to let his eyes make the pleasant journey from her slippered feet, up along the slender bare calves to that wonderfully snug Beauxbatons dress, which he had already made a formal petition to the Hogwarts Board of Advisors to have adopted as an official school uniform for females, all the way to Delacour's flawless porcelain face, which was set into a mask of firm purpose.

Harry shrugged and answered honestly. "Undressing you with my eyes?"

The mask wavered for a moment as she blinked and thinned her lips. On anyone else it would have qualified as a blush.

"I know what _else_ you are doing," she replied, a wry look crossing her lovely face.

He couldn't help but smile. This was going to be fun.

Harry made himself more comfortable in his place at the Slytherin table.

"Do tell."

She took a seat across from him, straight-backed with her arms folded neatly across her lap. The plate in front of her instantly filled itself with food, but she gave it a single disdainful look then ignored it completely.

"It is strange, yes," she began. "What has been happening to our fellow champions?"

Harry raised his eyebrows in puzzlement.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

Fleur glanced behind her to the Hufflepuff table, where Cedric sat surrounded by a wide swath of empty seats. He had returned to class, but still needed crutches to walk after what had happened in the Forbidden Forest. For a few broken bones, lacerations, and a nasty concussion, it should have only taken Madam Pomfery a few days to have him reasonably healthy again, but one of the side effects of acromantula venom was that it made injuries highly resistant to magical healing. It was also caused painful seizures when the victim tried to use magic, so Cedric had been forbidden to use his wand until the toxin was completely out of his system.

A direct consequence was that Cedric had been forced to pull out of the Second Task, which meant it was now all but impossible for him to win the Tournament. His popularity had taken a similar turn for the negative, since as far as anyone else knew, he had foolishly brought it all on himself by wandering off into the forest alone. The only people who were still talking to him at this point were his close friends, and even most of those conversations usually began with frustrated questions about why he would do something so stupid when the entire school was counting on him. Cedric, of course, was bound by geis not to answer, and his responses had quickly taken a snappish tone, driving away the few supporters he still had.

Harry took a certain grim satisfaction in the surge his own popularity had taken as a result. After all, he was the one who was leading the Tournament, so all that nonsense about Diggory being the "real" Hogwarts champion had put his teeth on edge. Besides, he had worked hard to put the other boy out of the competition, and deserved a little praise for it, even if the people who now went out of their way to pat him on the back in the halls as he went by had no idea what had actually happened.

"That was very unfortunate, what happened to Diggory," Harry said casually, picking up his fork again. "But what does it have to do with me?"

Fleur gave him a pointed look. "I have heard that just before his "unfortunate accident", you stole his girlfriend away at the Yule Ball. And then your date attacked him and put him in the hospital wing."

Harry shrugged. "I don't know anything about that. Cho is an old friend who asked me to walk her back up to her room because she was tired. Anyone who tells you differently is just gossiping. And Daphne said that Cedric tried to take advantage of her, so what did you expect her to do? Frankly, if anyone has a bone to pick about stealing dates, it's me, not him."

She continued to press the point. "But Diggory confronted you the next morning, yes? Challenged you to a duel?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, "but that was probably just embarrassment from getting his ass kicked by a girl in public. You of all people should know how men are. He was just looking for someone to take it out on, and I was handy. He calmed right down after I explained to him that dueling would get us both kicked out of the Tournament."

Harry sighed and pushed his plate to the side. "Listen, I don't know exactly what you're accusing me of here, but if it makes you feel any better, and in the interest of furthering international magical relations, I promise not to lay one finger on your girlfriend."

Fleur huffed and rolled her eyes, while Harry indulged himself in a brief fantasy of the French champion and another girl, who's face shifted into several different likenesses, lathering each other up in the shower. It was a very diverting thought. Just because his mind was disciplined enough to resist the veela attraction didn't mean that he was totally immune.

"And what about Krum," she asked, some of her former iciness beginning to melt into casual banter. "Do you mean to tell me that his "accident" was mere coincidence? You were the one who suggested he brew that good luck potion, so he could approach that girl. You did not plan that so he would fail at the First Task?"

Krum's injuries hadn't been as serious as Cedric's, so he hadn't been forced to step aside, but since they had come just before the First Task, he had still been somewhat hobbled when they went to face the dragons, and had finished in last place when the mother beast caught him with a swipe of her tail, breaking several ribs.

Harry leaned back and held his hands out in mock surrender. "I admit it, you caught me. That's why I set him up with Granger. It's part of my nefarious plot to bore him to death."

That got a smile. A very brief, quickly suppressed smile, but a smile none the less.

Harry gave her a look and stood up, calling across the Great Hall.

"Oi, Victor!"

Krum turned around and waved at him, flashing a friendly smile. Hermione, who was sitting next to him as they shared a book, waved as well.

"Pickup quidditch after last bell! You game?"

"Ov course!" the Bulgarian yelled back. "I vill play blindfolded, zo you vill haff a chance!"

Harry raised two fingers at him in response, which sent the Durmstrang champion into a fit of laughter. Sitting back down with a satisfied grin, he addressed Fleur again.

"As you can see, he and I are clearly at each other's throats," Harry said dryly. "I realize how that whole thing with the potion looked, but the fact is, all three Headmasters cleared me of wrongdoing, after questioning me under Veritaserum I might add. If that's good enough for him, why wouldn't it be good enough for you?"

"What is it with you, anyway," he asked, shifting to the offensive. "First you say that I'm too inexperienced to even participate in the Tournament, now you're accusing me of masterminding some bizarrely convoluted plot to take out the rest of the champions?"

He leaned in and said quietly. "Doesn't that sound a little crazy to you?"

Fleur stood up and straightened her dress, a glimmer of doubt and embarrassment flickering across her face. It was a nice look on her, but then again, most looks were.

"I will be watching you," she said finally, opting to stand her ground despite the logic knots Harry had been trying to tie her in.

"Right back 'atcha, love."

She gave him a slightly exasperated smile and an inclined nod, then turned to leave.

Harry's confident smile melted slightly as he watched her stride away. It was a pleasant enough sight, but he had other things on his mind right now than the practiced sway of Fleur Delacour's hips. He had planned to leave the girl alone until after the Second Task, but this little exchange convinced him that he might have to move up his schedule. He may have succeeded in planting the seed of doubt in her mind, but she was clearly on her guard now. Trying to fast-talk her, the way he had done with Krum and Diggory, was bound to fail, if only because it was coming from him. Pushing his luck might also send her running to the press, and the last thing he wanted was that kind of attention with things going so well right now.

No, what he needed was to come at Delacour from a different angle. Something she wouldn't expect, and which couldn't possibly be blamed on him. Luckily, he had just the thing. All he needed was a little help from someone who would be all too glad to give it.

* * *

"Myrtle?" Harry called, sticking his head into the third floor girl's lavatory. "Sweetie, are you here?"

The ghost was clearly in one of her moods. Every fixture in the room was flowing with water, far too much for the floor drains to keep up with, and the exposed pipes shook angrily, as if they were preparing to burst. Harry flicked his wand and muttered an incantation as he walked in, clearing a path through the ankle deep water like a miniature Red Sea.

"Myrtle! You home?"

A second or two later, the rapid fire, metallic banging and flowing water suddenly stopped, like someone had flicked a switch. There was an embarrassed pause, then Moaning Myrtle herself floated up from the floor near his feet, a sheepish look on her face.

"What's wrong," he asked her, feigned sincerity lacing his tone.

"Nothing," Myrtle quickly answered, not willing to take the chance on chasing him off with a long-winded, pointless story of her eternal teenaged angst. "Everything's fine!"

Harry glanced around at the still flooded bathroom. "You're sure?"

"Of course," she said, forcing a smile onto her face. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Harry shrugged and let it go, which was his intention from the beginning. It usually paid to indulge Myrtle a little, and simply acknowledging her problems was often enough to avoid having her explain them in detail.

"So, what brings you by," she asked, putting her arms behind her back and trying to act as if it didn't matter. "I barely see you at all anymore, not even working in the Chamber."

Harry leaned in and gave her a conspiratorial smile, which immediately had her bouncing on her metaphysical toes to hear what he had to say.

"Actually, I was wondering if you'd like to help me play a little trick on the Beauxbaton's champion."

"Which one is she?"

"The really, really pretty one."

Myrtle's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What do you need me to do?"

Harry smiled. "Well... you know all the local spooks, right?"

* * *

Fleur let out a stream of unladylike obscenities as she encountered yet another dead end. It was the third time already that she had been certain she had seen a glimpse of Gabrielle's blonde hair swaying in the distance, only to swim right into a nest of water snakes (which had been an extremely close call), and then a tangle of clinging seaweed, getting herself lost all over again.

Another flicker of gold flashed in the corner of her eyes, but was gone as soon as she turned her head. Somewhere along the way, she had drifted into an underwater valley, perhaps a one-time riverbed, and the water was murkier than ever, so that she was barely sure which way the surface was, much less where the hostages were being held. Picking a direction more or less at random, she started swimming again, well aware that her allotted hour was quickly slipping away. She had modified her Bubblehead Charm so that it fit only over her nose and mouth, leaving her ears free to listen through the water, and she had barely gotten more than a couple hundred feet when a high, tinny sound reached them, muffled and distorted by the lake, but recognizable none the less.

Someone was screaming for help off in the distance. Someone small and female.

Fleur redoubled her efforts, fear fueling her limbs, but the closer she got, the more the sound seemed to retreat. Her mind was filled with awful images of her little sister trapped in the clutches of some terrifying water monster, which was dragging her off to its lair to be torn apart and devoured at its leisure. The idea distracted her so thoroughly that she failed to notice the dimly silhouetted figures that were beginning to surround her, darting ribbon-like through the water as they shadowed her movements.

The first indication she had that something was very wrong was a slimy, scaled hand brushing at her ankle. She immediately drew herself up and rounded on whatever was behind her, but the touch had only been a distraction. Before she knew what was happening, a horde of grindylows had plowed into her from both sides, sending her crashing into the muddy lakebed and filling her awareness with snapping jaws and grasping, clawed hands. One of them slithered behind her and wrapped it's thick, powerful fingers around her throat from behind, trying to throttle her while it's companions held her arms down and wrestled her wand out of her grip.

Fleur struggled as hard as she could, but every time she fought one off, two more took it's place. She finally got a hand free and grabbed the one that was choking her, breaking three of its strong, but brittle digits. The creature let out a watery scream and jerked away, but her respite didn't last for long. She raised an arm to fend off another, but it ducked to the side and bit down on her wrist, sinking its needle-like teeth deep into her flesh. Letting out an angry scream, she grabbed the thing by the side of the skull with her other hand and viciously stabbed her thumb into its eye. It let her go, falling back with its hands clutched over its face and Fleur had a split second of freedom as the horde backed off, reassessing her as an opponent.

She was grateful for the chance to regroup, but she knew that she needed to get out of this quickly. All of that swimming had worn her down, and now she was suffering even more from the effects of being scratched, bitten, and nearly strangled into unconsciousness. Her arms and legs felt like lead weights, and bore several long red claw marks, which fortunately weren't bleeding much, but were beginning to swell and sting painfully. The bite on her wrist _was_ bleeding, more than she was comfortable with, but there was nothing she could do about it until she dealt with the swarm of little water monsters, which even now were swimming around in agitation, building up their courage for a second attack.

She wracked her brain for any useful information about grindylows, but couldn't recall anything that would help her fight off nearly twenty at the same time without a wand. She glanced around for it one more time, but there was no hope of finding it in this muck, and whenever she turned her attention away from the grindylows, they pressed in close, hoping to catch her unawares, chittering and squeaking to each other in their own primitive language.

The grindylows might have a basic human shape: two arms, two legs, and an upright posture, but they were still basically animals, with animal instincts. Being part magical creature herself, Fleur had a fairly good idea what they were thinking. They were pursuing her because they perceived her as prey: alone, worn out, and ripe for the taking. What she needed to do was convince them that she was no easy meat. She had made a good start already, fighting off their first ambush and bloodying two of them. Now she needed to make a display that would prove that she was too dangerous to mess with. Since her wand was gone, that left one option.

Her veela blood was too thin to transform fully, never mind the fact that wings and magical fire might be the worst possible weapons imaginable for an underwater fight, but she could do enough to make herself look more menacing, if only for a short time. For her, trying to transform was like flexing every muscle in her body all at once, then holding them taut, and even when she was rested it wasn't something she could keep up for long.

She did it now though, baring her teeth at the grindylows menacingly, feeling the bones in her face shift painfully and push them forward, like a muzzle. Her eyes changed as well, narrowing into vertical slits that glowed with an inner light. Her fingers lengthened, sprouting talons which she flexed for dramatic effect. Her shoulders bulged with muscles meant to power wings as wide as a city bus, but only formed as vestigial bumps.

The effect on the grindylows was immediate. The rapid fire clicks and whistles they had been exchanging ceased, and they went still in the water, like a mouse that had seen the shadow of a hunting bird of prey. Several of them simply melted down into the murk, taking the opportunity to flee while the tableau lasted, but more than half kept their places, waiting to see what she would do next.

Fleur let out an angry howl and slashed her talons at the nearest grindylow, but it was all show. Her limbs burned with fatigue, and what strength she did have was fading fast. With a pained cry, she lost the partial transformation, reverting back to her normal form. The remaining grindylows, sensing that she was spent, swarmed her, biting and grabbing for a hold on her neck again.

The last thought she had before she finally passed out was a fervent wish that Gabrielle was safe, wherever she was.

* * *

Harry almost wanted to curse Myrtle for being too successful.

He had sent her off to gather all the will-o-the-wisps she could find and tell them that several humans would be looking for something important in the lake today, and the vengeful spirits had responded enthusiastically, pouring into the area by the hundreds. He could hardly turn his head without seeing another one, trying to tempt him away from his goal and into some bad situation, and only the fact that he knew they were there that kept him from falling for the trap.

What he had done was dangerously close to directly interfering with a Task, which was a major offense as far as the Tournament rules went, and more than enough to get him disqualified if it had been interpreted as such. The fact that he wasn't flat on his back, writhing in agony from the aftereffects of breaking the magical oath he was under, was proof enough that that hadn't happened, but it was a close thing. The technical loophole he had exploited was that he had simply increased the natural hazards of the terrain, thereby making the Task harder for everyone, including himself.

But since Harry knew what to expect, he had a significant edge over the other two champions. After some library research, and making a few discrete inquiries with the more talkative portraits and ghosts about what the layout of the lake bottom was, he also had a decent idea where he was going. He would have preferred to do some personal reconnaissance, but Karkaroff had been given the job of keeping the champions out of the lake and had set to it with a will, particularly where Harry was concerned. He had finally given up trying after the third attempt, when he was almost "accidentally" impaled by the mast of the Durmstang ship as it surfaced where he was swimming.

But despite all that, he was still making excellent time. His transformed body slid easily through the water, propelled by flippered feet and webbed hands that moved as surely as if he had been doing this his entire life. He had brewed the Amphibeing Potion for this particular Task, which recreated the effects of eating gillyweed, but had the added benefit of allowing him to hold a water-breathing shape for as long as he liked, until he took the antidote, which was waiting for him back on shore.

He crested a rise and came within view of the merpeople town, a craggy collection of buildings hewn straight out of the standing stone and lit up in the gloom by bioluminescent creatures cultivated for the purpose. It was a little shocking, really, to think that a settlement of several hundred sentient creatures lived their entire lives down here, hardly interacting at all with the school above.

As he drew closer though, he could tell instantly that something wasn't right. The town, which he had expected to be bustling with curious underwater dwellers, was completely deserted, and hundreds upon hundreds of long vines were creeping in and out of the dwellings, not exactly moving around, but not entirely still either. Harry hoped that the eerie sight was just a trick of the light, but he doubted it. Long, thin red leaves drifted up from the thumb-thick vines, swaying drowsily in the current, and something about them tugged at his memory, but when he tried to chase the thought down, he came up blank.

Either way, he was careful to keep clear of them, and took pains to keep an eye on the suspicious plants as he moved through the town. What he saw there put him further on edge. It looked as if there had been a fight. Shattered war tridents and assorted debris littered the lake floor, and the water here felt different in his gills, like something heavy and metallic had been diluted in it.

Like blood.

Harry's highly developed sense of self-perseveration was singing to him that it was time to embrace the better part of valor, but he dismissed the notion and pressed ahead. Sirius was still up there somewhere, and he had gone to far to much trouble already with this idiotic tournament to be scared off quite so easily.

No obstacles barred his journey through the town. Even the normal aquatic life seemed to have abandoned the area, right down to the ubiquitous little bait fish he had seen swimming next to every rock and plant in the rest of the lake. As if to make up for the lack of living creatures, Myrtle's will-o-the-whips ran thick through the streets, formless and quiescent as vague shapes of palely glowing, unearthly mist, but very much there, as if they were waiting for something, and impatiently so.

Knowing their nature as harbingers of deadly traps, Harry drew his wand and got ready for the other shoe to drop.

At the center of the town was a massive statue of a warrior merman, hewn out of a single boulder and worn to featurelessness by age and the relentless action of the current. Three unconscious people were bound with heavy ropes to the tail, apparently under a water-breathing spell, if the bubbles rising out of their mouths were any indication. Somewhat ominously, all three were wrapped from head to toe in the same mysterious vines that covered the rest of the town, so that the only way he would be able to get to them was by cutting it. Every instinct he possessed told him that that would be a very, very bad idea, both for him and the hostages.

Harry circled the statue, taking his time to assess the situation before he did anything. Granger, Krum's hostage, was on the far left, wisps of her dark brown hair floating in the current, the parts of it that weren't hideously tangled in with the vines. He flicked his wand at her and muttered a delving charm that told him she was alive and healthy, but in an enchanted sleep, which was more or less what he expected. Sirius was on the far right, decked out in sandals, beach shorts, and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt that even Dumbledore would have found gaudy. Typical enough for him, but it was the third hostage in-between the two of them who was the source of Harry's growing concern.

He had been expecting some dull-eyed, well-muscled boy toy, or even one the other vapid, empty-headed French girls that had been part of the Beauxbaton's contingent. What he hadn't expected was an utterly adorable, utterly helpless, and completely innocent little blonde-haired girl, who didn't look to be a day over eight years old.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Having been orphaned by murder as a toddler had taught Harry one extremely important life lesson which he carried with him to this day. Sometimes bad things happened to good people. It was just a fact of life, nothing to get worked up over. So if Harry himself happened to occasionally _be_ the bad thing that happened to a good person, as was the case with his fellow champions... well, tough shit, right?

Unfortunately, that philosophy didn't extend to adorable, helpless, innocent little girls.

At the moment, he really wished it did. Granger would be fine on her own. She hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor for nothing. She had a spine as straight and hard as a coffin nail underneath all that bushy hair and brains. And besides, Krum was coming for her. That shark form of his would allow him to track the hostages by smell, bypassing the Will-o-the-Wisp's entirely. It was actually a pretty clever idea, if a rather unimpressive partial self-transfiguration. He'd have probably beaten Harry here if not for the fact that his human body was undoubtedly having trouble pushing the large, heavy shark's head through the water.

But no one was coming for the little girl.

"Come on, Potter," Harry said angrily to himself, "Now's not the time for an attack of the morals. Grab Padfoot and bugger off. She's not your problem."

He might have been able to convince himself of that, too, if not for that fact that he was the reason no one was coming to rescue her.

The vines were another wild card, and one he wasn't eager at all to turn over. They appeared to be growing out of the base of the statue, with their roots fixed solidly underneath, which meant that the only way to get to them was to blast it apart, something that would take time and could only be done after the hostages were free. It was entirely possible that they were part of the task, but he was almost certain that wasn't the case.

Moving back towards the hostages, Harry examined the semi-familiar red leaves again. They appeared to sway along with the current, but when he moved his hand close, they leaned towards it, like iron filings to a magnet. He pulled back before they got too close, but the movement confirmed his suspicions, that this was some kind of hybridized aquatic version of a tangle weed.

Tangle weeds were the murderous cousin of the Devil's Snare. Vampiric plants that hunted by ambush, using red, antenna-like leaves that hung down over game trails in the jungle. Even the slightest brush was enough to have dozens of independently moving limbs descend on the prey, wrapping around it and draining it of blood through retractable, hollow thorns. They were studiously neat creatures as well, taking care to bury the drained bodies of their victims, so as not to frighten off future prey with the stench of decay.

Harry glanced around at the empty town again, it's very stillness a testament to the voracious nature of this particular specimen. Successful tanglers grew at a phenomenal rate while they were feeding, and given enough food, could cover an entire forest in the space of a week. It was for that very reason they were hunted down and killed wherever they appeared, and possessing one was considered a criminal offense in every civilized magical nation. This one clearly grew even faster than that, having consumed and occupied the entire merperson settlement in the space of a couple of hours.

Likely the only thing that had saved the hostages thus far was the fact that they were so deeply entranced that they hadn't moved a muscle. The weed had simply grown around them, oblivious to the fact that they were very much on the menu.

Harry had never heard mention of an aquatic version of this particular plant, which was why he hadn't recognized it until now, but with magic anything was possible. What it meant, though, was that the entire town was one huge death trap, which would spring the second he touched one of the hostages. Who put it here was irrelevant at the moment, but his mind instantly went to Karkaroff the Death Eater traitor, who had been responsible for preparing the lake for the task.

Harry closed his eyes and ran through the possibilities in his head. He could head back to shore and call for help, but he was hesitant to leave the hostages behind. If his delving was correct, the enchanted sleep they were under would end before he got to shore. The only reason the three of them were still alive was that the tangle weed hadn't realized they were prey yet. Once they woke up and began to struggle, the weed would rouse itself, and all three would be dead and buried in the muck by the time help arrived.

Liberal application of fire was the recommended solution to a tangle weed infestation, but that was useless underwater, and too dangerous to the hostages even if the option were available. The simplest option was to kill the root, which would in turn kill the vines and defuse the trap, but as long as Granger, Sirius, and the little girl were tied to the statue protecting it, there was no way to reach it without killing them.

Harry's eyes opened as an unavoidably risky, but potentially workable plan occurred to him. If heat wasn't the answer, then maybe cold was. Tangle weeds were tropical vines, after all, which died when the weather turned to frost. This one was obviously a hardier breed, to live in chilly lake water like this, but he didn't need enough ice to kill the entire thing, just enough to break the hostages loose. It was a bad idea and he knew it, but it was also the best he was going to do on short notice.

"God, I hate this hero shit," he said to himself as he readied his wand.

Pointing it directly at the little girl, he began the incantation for a Freezing Spell, but barely got past the first syllable before the vines below his feet surged upwards with terrifying speed and tried to wrap around his legs. If he had been in his normal human form, he would have been caught easily. As it was, he just barely managed to slip out of their grasp, and then avoid several more that swept upwards at him, splayed out and questing like a blind man looking for a doorway in an unfamiliar room.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Harry muttered in disgust.

Whatever had been done to this particular weed had not only allowed it to flourish underwater, but had also somehow given it the ability to sense incipient spellcraft being used against it.

Contrary to popular opinion and various urban myths, many of which he himself had started through gullible third parties, Harry wasn't an inordinately powerful wizard. Above average, certainly, but even once he reached his full maturity, he would never be anywhere near Dumbledore or Voldemort's league. One of the ways he compensated for that was to embrace the lessons that the Dark Lord himself had begun to teach him in first year while posing as Professor Quirrell. He had become an avid student of the wandless arts: potions, runecraft, alchemy, the various rituals of sympathy and thaumaturgy, and even a little necromancy when he was absolutely certain that no one was looking.

All of which had come in handy at various times, but were virtually useless to him at the moment. Padfoot had spent most of the summer drilling him on the finer points of becoming an animagus, but that was something he still hadn't gotten the hang of it yet. He circled the statue again, studying it from every angle. Theoretically, sympathetic magic could be used to freeze the water around the hostages, but he'd have to freeze the entire lake. He simply wasn't powerful enough to do that, even if he had somewhere handy to store all that heat.

He stopped and realized with a flash of annoyance that he was approaching this from the wrong angle. The problem wasn't the hostages or the water, or even the vines. Those were just aspects of the deathtrap, and focusing on them would get him nowhere. The real danger was the thrice damned root, sitting snug and protected by ten tons of solid rock.

He lowered his wand and focused on the statue, ignoring everything around it. Sympathy worked by building mental links between objects, and transferring energy between them. It was perhaps the oldest and simplest magic in the world, and though it had fallen out of favor as the millennia passed, it's discovery had changed human history. The first man to create fire had done so by transferring a portion of his own body heat into a wooden branch, igniting it, and it's study had eventually led to the basic principles of the lever and the wheel. It was the type of magic most grounded in science, because its application was limited by various natural laws, such as the fact that stone was a very poor conductor of heat, but water was very good at it.

And if there was one thing Harry had plenty of right now, it was water.

So instead of freezing the water, he froze the statue. He forged a link between the stone and the lake, using his own body as a heat pump and ripped every bit of thermal energy out of it, passing it through himself and out into the frosty water, which gobbled it up greedily. For several seconds, he felt like he was standing in the middle of a blast furnace, since the sheer size of the statue meant that it had considerable heat stored up inside of it, but the effect was immediate and satisfactory.

A layer of ice quickly formed along the exposed surface of the statue. The leaves closest to it began to shrivel and die as the root did what all plants did when threatened by frost and turned in on itself, conserving energy. The vines darkened and drooped, loosening their grip on the hostages, and the statue itself shuddered and split cleanly down the middle, letting out a thunderously loud crack that exploded in his eardrums, shattering his concentration, along with the mental link.

He clapped his hands over his ears and cried out, but couldn't hear himself scream. The next thing he was aware of was strong hands taking him by the shoulders and shaking him, not very gently. He opened his eyes to see that Sirius had broken free of the ice and dying vines, presumably having been woken up by the sudden shock of the rock against his back cooling down to something approaching absolute zero. Harry's godfather was screaming his name, but there was nothing but a dull ringing sound in his ears.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye and Harry instinctively grabbed for his wand. Sirius gave him a smug look and held it up, having already lifted it from him while he was out, then nodded to his left, where Victor had appeared from somewhere and was pulling Granger and the little girl free from the quiescent vines. Granger was moving very gingerly, and the little girl was clinging to her, bawling in pain. Both of them were doubtlessly sporting impressive cold burns where they had been in contact with the way-past-freezing stone, but that was better than the alternative.

Krum was already casting pain-relieving spells on them, getting ready to carry them both back to shore. Deep puncture marks around his left leg gave testament that he had already had his own run in with the tangle weed farther back in the village, which was why he had been delayed for so long, and he clearly needed no explanation that the Task was over, and getting out of here alive was the priority now.

"What happened," Sirius mouthed slowly at him. He was certainly in far more discomfort than either of the girls, since he was the only one not wearing heavy robes, but the former felon turned national hero was made of far sterner stuff, and endured it with the long-suffering patience of someone who had lived in agony for so long he hardly noticed it anymore.

Harry pointed angrily at the surface, then pounded the inside of his left forearm and swept his arm around the devastated merpeople village.

Sirius' expression went flat and hard. "Karkaroff," he mouthed.

Harry pointed at his nose.

Padfoot jerked his head in the direction of shore, but Harry shook him off and pointed back at the statue. As much as he loathed playing the hero, they needed to finish this threat off while they had the chance. Sirius frowned, but nodded in agreement. He swam over so that he could look down into the crack and widened it further with several well-placed blasting curses, exposing the root. It was a light green, the color of freshly exposed wood, and throbbed like a living heart. Sirius took aim and finished it off with a single Killing Curse. The town was briefly and spectacularly illuminated with green light as the energy of the curse flowed from the roots along each and every individual vine and leaf. Seconds later, the tangle weed was as dead as the village itself.

Harry found it hard to feel one way or another about that. All of these people had died just so a Death Eater could lay a trap for him, but it wasn't the first time something like that had happened, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Collateral damage wasn't just simply a hazard when it came to being the Boy-Who-Lived, it was a way of life.

He and Padfoot quickly caught up with Krum and the other hostages. Even with numbing spells, Granger and the girl were in no condition to swim, and both were awkwardly holding onto Victor's shark back as he swam for shore, his eyes peeled for unexpected danger. Harry let his godfather hang onto his wand and guard their backs, two things he trusted very few people in the world to do, then eased Krum's burden by letting the little girl clamber onto his back. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and he could feel her lean down to say something to him. His hearing had come back just enough to hear her whisper one word, over and over again.

"_Merci."_

She kissed him on the cheek, and Harry felt a smile slip across his lips. Maybe being the hero wasn't as annoying as he thought.

* * *

The spectators broke into an awkward cheer as he stumbled out of the water, happy to see that he had represented Hogwarts by returning first, but confused as to why he was carrying someone else's hostage. Fleur let out a relieved shout and sprinted over, tossing aside the thick, warm towels she had been wrapped in as she came. Harry noted that she was covered in bruises and bright red scratches, and was surprised to feel an acute sense of guilt at the sight.

He chalked it up to exhaustion and suppressed the feeling immediately. Wouldn't do to get soft now.

The little girl in his arms reached out for Fleur, babbling in French too quickly for him to decipher, though he caught the word "sister" and the name "Gabrielle" in Fleur's response. He gladly handed the frightened girl to the French champion and scanned the crowd for a face he knew he wouldn't see. Blaise came running up right behind her and handed him the Amphibeing antidote, which he took immediately, shifting back to his normal form. Zabini also had his backup wand, which he slipped discreetly into Harry's other hand while no one was looking.

"Where's Karkaroff," Sirius bellowed, coming out of the water with Harry's original wand raised. He was scanning the crowd as well, looking furious at the Durmstrang headmaster's absence.

By the time they got the whole thing sorted out and a search started, it was far too late. Krum and his classmates were appalled and furious at what their leader had done, but after a vote, decided to stay at Hogwarts for the duration of the Tournament. The Durmstrang ship had also turned up missing, so the group ended up moving into the Slytherin dorms, much to the approval of Snape and the delight of the House, who took no missed opportunity to rub it in with the other students.

While the Ministry was still deciding how to word the press release, and the Order was still debating what to do next, Sirius simply walked out the front door, ignoring the protestations of Madam Pomfrey, and went hunting for Igor Karkaroff, intent on finding out whether his assassination attempt was a solo job or part of a larger plot. He and Harry made arrangements to meet after the Tournament, since communication would be difficult in the places where Padfoot was heading.

After the fury had finally died down, and well after he was supposed to have gone to bed, Harry found himself slipping into the Hospital Wing. His own injuries were reasonably minor, but Granger and the Delacour girl had been ordered to spend the night under observation to make sure their frostbite didn't grow into anything more dangerous.

He drifted over to the first curtained bed and peeked inside. Granger was wrapped in a pile of blankets, with little more than her hair and closed eyes visible. She would be alright. Far from being angry at nearly getting frozen to death in the course of Harry's rescue, she had been extremely impressed by his resourcefulness, and utterly fascinated by sympathetic magic, which she had barely heard of before today.

Naturally, she had demanded that he teach it to her as soon as possible, and mapped out a schedule for lessons before he had even finished telling the entire story.

At the far end of the wing was a second screened-off area. Gabrielle Delacour was curled up in the middle of the bed, which radiated a gentle warmth from the spells Madam Pomfrey had layered on top of it. She had taken the worse of the cold, since she was considerably smaller than either Granger or Padfoot, and the trip back to shore hadn't done her much good either.

Harry wasn't quite sure why he had come here, but found himself sitting down on the edge of the her bed. Poppy had said she would recover in a few days, but even now, the little girl was pale and shivering beneath the thick covers. He placed the back of his hand against her cheek and could easily feel the chill. Unconsciously, she leaned into him, muttering something in French under her breath.

Harry usually didn't waste time indulging in guilt trips. He certainly hadn't when it came to all of those dead merpeople back in the village, but then again, he had only seen the aftereffects there. Here he was faced with the consequences of his own actions. He hadn't laid the trap, but maybe he could have found a way to defuse it that didn't involve friends and innocents getting hurt. And he definitely should have kept a better eye on Karkaroff. He had put so much effort into sabotaging the other champions that he had lost focus on the real threat.

It wasn't a mistake he would make twice.

He tugged the blankets up to Gabrielle's chin, gave her soft blonde hair a final affectionate rub, and stood to leave. Ducking out from behind the curtain, he found himself face to face with Fleur, who had apparently been watching him visit her sister. The French champion's superficial cuts and bruises had been easily healed, with only a mild discoloration around her pale, slender throat to attest to the fact that she had been injured. She would have been killed easily, if not for the fact that the grindylows had been placed under a geis that compelled them to bring her back to shore rather than finish her off.

Dumbledore's idea, of course. The purists had grumbled that the chance of death was half the fun, but never where he could hear them.

With her hair down, standing in the dim candlelight of the Hospital Wing, Delacour was even more stunning than usual. She put a finger to her lips, took him by the hand, and led him quietly out of the room, down the hall, and out to a small, seldom-used courtyard.

Fleur turned around and took both of his hands in hers. They were standing very close, and Harry noted again that she was taller than he was, but didn't let it bother him.

"I was wrong about you," she said quietly.

"Which part," he asked. "That I'm a little boy, or some kind of criminal mastermind?"

He smiled, and she returned it gladly.

"Both," she replied, then leaned down to kiss him. Her body pressed against his, and her tongue quickly found its way past his lips. As Fleur pulled him down to the cool grass and set about giving him a proper reward, it occurred to Harry for the second time today that being a hero might not be quite so bad.

But being the bad guy was way more fun.

(end)

AN: Apologizing for the delay would be pointless, since everything I write has massive, laziness-induced delays built into it. I've actually been so guilty about not updating this that I haven't read any of the reviews since just after the most recent chapter.

The last couple of WWSHD installments focused more on the conniving and manipulative aspects of Harry's personality, since I wanted to make the point that he was more of a functional villain than a good guy, albeit one who mostly works against the other villains. In that same vein, I wanted to use this one to explore his more selfless aspect, showing that he will sometimes go out of his way to save people he cares about, as well as those who he feels can't protect themselves, or who were put in danger by unintended consequences of his actions.

Originally, I had intended to have Harry do battle with the tangle weed. It's actually a scene I've had ticking around my head for a long time, and which I planned to adapt for this story, but the flow led me in a different direction. Frankly, I put him in a situation where I simply couldn't see him prevailing in an open battle without someone getting killed, so I had him find another way.

Sympathetic magic I mostly stole from Patrick Rothfuss' "The Name of the Wind", which features a hero who, like Slytherin!Harry, relies more on his mind to solve problems than his muscles. Good read, if a little slower paced and more melodramatic than I prefer.

I have several other installments of WWSHD in various states of completion, but none of them feel quite important or interesting enough to update with after such a long delay. My current plan is to go back to third year and show how Harry managed to clear Padfoot's name. There's a couple of clues sprinkled throughout the Triwizard Mini-Series, for anyone who cares to try and put the pieces together.

For those of you who would have preferred a more detailed Harry/Fleur scene at the end, you may see it someday, but there just wasn't space for it here. I've been toying with the idea of doing a "Who Would Slytherin Harry Do?" series, detailing his various sexual adventures and encounters, but I've never gotten around to it, and I make no promises that I ever will.

Big D


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